
Oass_ 
Book 



COPYRIGHT E«P0S1T 







cot ,/ifSaYuutffit ^,^ 



The ()rego)i overhauling the ri.s-caija and Cristobal Colon off Santiago, July .1, 1898. 



A SHORT HISTORY 



OF THE 



AMERICAN NAVY 



BY 

JOHN R. SPEARS 



PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE 
NAVY LEAGUE OF THE UNITED STATES 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1907 



SI'"' 



LlbHft«Y of CONGRESS 
Two UoDies Hecclved 

MAN 26 190? 

CLASS /I XXc, No. 

tjovy B. 



Copyright, 1907, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNEK'S SONS 



Published, March, 1907 



TROW DIRECTORY 

PBINTING AND BOOKBINDINO COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. Sea Fights and Fighters of the Revolution . 1 

II. Building a New Navy 18 

III. The War of 1812. Its Origin 27 

IV. Learning the Art of Naval Warfare ... 37 
V. Important Sea Battles of the War of 1812 . . 44 

VI. Ships that were Lost 50 

VII. Squadron Battles of the War of 1812 ... 58 

VIII. Development of Ships and Guns in the Old Navy 72 

IX. The Naval Work of the Civil War .... 80 

X. Building the White Squadron 100 

XL The War with Spain 107 

XII. Our Navy as It Is 122 

XIIL Organization of the Navy 128 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Oregon overhauling the Viscaya and Cristobal Colon 

off Santiago, July 3, 1898 Frontispiece 

PACING 
PAGE 

The destruction of Falmouth, now Portland, Maine, in Octo- 
ber, 1775, by Captain Mowatt 16 

The Constitution escaping from a British squadron off the 
Capes of the Chesapeake, July, 1812 44 

The privateer Comet overhauling three British vessels off 

Pernambuco, in January, 1813 70 

The Mississippi going to the rehef of the Hunter, in a 

storm off Vera Cruz, in the War with Mexico . . .76 

The Confederate ironclad Merrimac ramming the Cumber- 
land, Hampton Roads, March, 1862 88 



NAVY LEAGUE OF THE UNITED STATES 



OFFICERS 

Horace Poetek, Former Ambassador to France President. 

William McAdoo, Former Assistant Secretary of the Navy - - - Vice-President. 

Clinton E. Beaine, Vice-President SJ^th Street National Bank - Treasurer. 

EoBEET S. Sloan, President Fitsgibbons Boiler Co. Secretary. 

Geoege H. Owen, In Charge of Headquarters Asst. Secretary, 

Heebert L. Satteelee, Counsellor-at-law Counsel. 



HONORARY MEMBERS 

Theodoee Roosevelt, President of the United States. 
ViCTOE H. Metcalf, Secretary of the Navy. 



HONORARY VICE-PRESIDENTS 



John D. Long, of Massachusetts, 

Ex-Secretary of the Navy. 

Charles H. Allen, of Massachusetts, 

Ex-Assistant Secretary of the Navy. 

John W. Weeks, of Massachusetts, 

Ex-Capt. Naval Militia of Massachusetts. 

J. Pierpont Morgan, of New York. 

Thomas Lowry, of Minnesota. 

Edward Mills Adams, of California. 

Charles Warren Lippitt, 

Ex-Governor of Rhode Island. 

James Gordon Bennett, of New York. 

L. A. Watres, 

Ex-Lieutenant-Governor of Pennsylvania. 

Paul Morton, of New York, 

Ex-Secretary of the Navy. 



Robert M. Thompson, of New Jersey, 

President N. A. Alumni Association. 

E. C. Benedict, of New York. 

Myron T. Herrick, 

Ex- Governor of Ohio. 

Jarvis B. Edson, of New York. 

J. Russell Soley, of New York, 

Ex-Assistant Secretary of the Navy. 

Frank W. Hackett, of New Haven, 

Ex-Assistant Secretary of the Navy. 

Alexander Van Rensselaer, of Pennsylvania. 

Phillips Lee Goldsborough, of Maryland. 

Charles T. Barney, of New York. 

Francis B. Blake, of London. 

Thomas J. Woodward, of Louisiana. 



Headquarters of the League, 78 Broad Street, New York City. 



INTRODUCTION 

The purposes of the Navy League of the United States are 
'Ho acquire and spread before the citizens of the country 
information as to the condition of its naval forces and 
ships, and to awaken pubUc interest and activity in all mat- 
ters tending to aid, improve, and develop the efficiency 
of the Nav}^" There can be no better method of arousing 
and maintaining interest in the Navy than by reciting, 
however briefly, the principal facts in its splendid record. 
The stories of the brave men who have fought for our 
country on the sea cannot be told too often. All Americans 
should know them by heart, and every naturalized alien, 
as well as each boy and girl who will eventually partici- 
pate in the duties and privileges of citizenship, should have 
ready access to them. 

In compiling a bibliography of the United States Navy, 
it became apparent to the officers of the Navy League that 
there was no brief history of the Navy, and they selected 
Mr. John R. Spears to prepare one. The present volume 
is the result, and its official character is attested by a reso- 
lution passed by the Executive Committee of the Navy 
League on January 24, 1907, as follows : 

"RESOLVED:— That the short history of the United 
States Navy, written by John R. Spears in response to the 
invitation of the League, having been examined and ap- 
proved by the Committee appointed for that purpose, be 
and the same hereby is adopted as the standard 'Short 
Histor>^' of the United States Navy and be recommended 
to the members of the Navy League and to all Americans, 
and that Charles Scribner's Sons be authorized to publish 
the same. Furthermore be it : 



vi INTRODUCTION 



''RESOLVED:— That the thanks of the League be ten- 
dered to Mr. John R. Spears, the historian; Mr. Carlton T. 
Chapman, the marine artist; Messrs. Harper & Brothers, 
publishers; and to Messrs. Henry W. Miller, WilUam H. 
Stay ton, and Herbert L. Satterlee, the Committee." 

Every reader of this httle history will undoubtedly have 
a newly kindled enthusiasm for the Navy and a better ap- 
preciation of its important relation to the peace and pros- 
perity of our Nation. In war times heroic deeds arouse the 
emotions that have borne such splendid results for civiUza- 
tion, but we need in times of peace a practical means for 
their continuance. Our country has become too large to 
trust to individual sentiment for the perpetuation of our 
national ideals. The Navy League has been founded to 
make this sentiment effective and its membership is open 
to every citizen. 

January 25, 1907, 

Navy League Headquarters, 

78 Broad Street, New York City. 



A SHORT HISTORY OF THE 
AMERICAN NAVY 



SEA FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS OF THE 
REVOLUTION 

The first fight afloat in the War of the Revolution oc- 
curred when the British armed schooner Gaspe was burned 
on a reef just below Providence, R. I., early in the morning 
of June 10, 1772. The Gaspe while engaged as a revenue 
cutter had interfered with lawful coastwise commerce in 
•imlawful fashion, and when she ran ashore while in chase 
of a coaster the exasperated business men of Providence 
mobbed her. 

But it was not until war had been actually begun 
by the battle of Lexington, on April 19, 1775, that the 
people first gave serious thought to the building of an 
American navy. The Continental Congress met on May 
10 following this battle, and on June 14 a committee of 
the Congress was appointed to ^'consider, inquire, and re- 
port with respect to organization of a naval force." Mr. 
Joseph Hewes was made chairman of this committee. 
Ten days later he was authorized ''to invite John Paul 
Jones, Esq., gent., of Virginia, Master Mariner," to come 
to Philadelphia to give advice. Jones, Nicholas Biddle, 
and three other merchant-ship captains were empowered 
by the committee to examine a number of vessels, lying 



2 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

at Philadelphia, that were supposed to be available for use 
as warships, and it was on their recommendation that 
Congress purchased two ships, which were named the Al- 
fred and the Columbus, and two brigs that were named the 
Andrea Doria and the Cabot. The Alfred was in the East 
India trade when purchased. She was of 440 tons burden, 
and after she had been strengthened she was armed with 
eight 12-pounders, twelve 9-pounders, and eight 6-pound- 
ers. She carried a crew of 220 officers and men. 

It is worth remembering that the foundation of the 
American navy consisted of these four converted mer- 
chantmen, the largest of which carried guns that could 
throw 126 pounds of shot at a broadside. 

On December 22, 1775, Congress made Esek Hopkins 
commander-in-chief of the new navy, with Dudley Salton- 
stall, Abraham Whipple (he of the Gaspe attack), Nicho- 
las Biddle, and John Burroughs Hopkins, captains of the 
four vessels in the order named. John Paul Jones was 
placed at the head of the list of lieutenants and assigned 
to the Alfred. On the same day Jones went aboard his 
ship and in the presence of a number of the members of 
Congress hoisted the first naval ensign, the rattlesnake 
burgee, bearing the motto, '^ Don't Tread on Me,"'* thus 
placing the ship in commission. 

This squadron was increased by the brig Providence, the 
schooners Hornet and Fly, and the sloop Wasp, and then, 
on February 17, 1776, it put to sea, went to New Prov- 
idence Island in the Bahamas, captured some ammunition, 
and returned thence to New London, having accomplished 
nothing of importance. In fact one finds as a result of 
this cruise, through its lack of success and the quarrels 
among its officers, the beginning of a feeling of distrust 
that was to work incalculable harm to the navy and there- 
fore to the nation, as shall appear. 



SEA FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION 3 

From first to last the salt-water navy of the Revolu- 
tion included forty-seven vessels — ships, brigs, schooners, 
and sloops. The first real naval ships were thirteen frig- 
ates that were ordered built on December 13, 1775. Five 
of these carried thirty- two guns — 12-pounders on the gun 
deck and 9-pounders on poop and forecastle. Five more 
carried twenty-eight guns, and three carried twenty-four, 
12-pounders and 9-pounders, as in the case of the largest 
frigates.^ A frigate called the I ndien was built at Amster- 
dam, Holland, and was armed with thirty 36-pounders and 
fourteen 9-pounders — a formidable vessel for her time. 
Another frigate, the Alliance, carried twenty-six 12-pound- 
ers and ten smaller guns. Then near the end of the war, 
a ship of the Une (seventy-four guns) was launched under 
the name America, but she and the I ndien were given to 
Louis XVI of France. Five of the forty-seven, including 
the Bonhomme Richard, were borrowed of the King of 
France. Of all the fleet, three only did work that is mem- 
orable in this volume — the Ranger, the Bonhomme Rich- 
ard, and the Randolph. But before recounting their deeds, 
attention must be given to a fresh-water flotilla that served 
the country well. 

As the reader will remember, the American forces that 
invaded Canada in September, 1775, were driven out, early 
in 1776, by the arrival of a British army that, under Sir 
Guy Carleton, was under orders to march to the head of 
the Hudson River, and by uniting with the British fleet 
there, cut the colonies asunder. 

As there was no wagon road along either side of Lake 
Champlain, Sir Guy stopped at St. John's, a military sta- 
tion just below (north of) Lake Champlain, to build a fleet 
with which to control and cross the lake. When com- 
pleted this fleet included a ship of 300 tons, two schooners^ 

'There is good reason for supposing that 9-pounders were used on the gun-decks 
of some of these frigates. 



4 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

a huge scow, a gondola, twenty gunboats, and four long- 
boats. These carried at least 109 guns of which a large 
proportion were 24-pounders and 12-pounders. Thus the 
scow carried six 24-pounders and six 12-pounders while 
the ship carried eighteen 12-pounders. Even the gunboats 
carried some 24-pounders, though the number of them is 
not given, and in fact it is not important save for compari- 
son with the guns of the American vessels. 

To meet this squadron Benedict Arnold, then a most 
energetic patriot, constructed one sloop, three schooners, 
eight gondolas, and five galleys, of which, however, one 
schooner and one galley were absent at the time of the 
fight. His best guns were 18-pounders and he had no more 
than six of them, if so many. There were, perhaps, nine 12- 
pounders, and the others to the number of 102 all told, 
were 6's, 4's, or 2's. In size and equipment the fleet was 
wholly inadequate for the work, and where the British 
ships were manned by picked crews from the men-o'-war 
at Quebec, Arnold had to recruit his crews from the garri- 
son at Ticonderoga. Defeat and destruction were inevitable. 

Nevertheless, traitor though he was in after - years, 
Arnold at this time showed courage and resourcefulness 
that make his work forever memorable in the annals of 
the navy. For, first of all, he went down the lake to meet 
the enemy. Then he anchored his flotilla behind Valcour 
Island, where, owing to pecuHarities of the wind and water, 
he was sure to have the weather gauge when the enemy 
came. 

On the 11th of October, 1776, the British left St. John's 
for Ticonderoga. The wind was from the north, and they 
were wafted well past Valcour Island before they saw that 
the American fleet was there. Turning hastily around 
they strove then to beat up to the attack, but they were so 
slow in doing this that the impatient Arnold went down 



SEA FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION 5 

with three galleys and the schooner Royal Savage to meet 
them. The battle opened at eleven o'clock with a broad- 
side from the British schooner Carleton, and Arnold was 
obliged to retreat to the support of his other vessels. In 
doing this a shot disabled the Royal Savage and she was 
sunk close to the island. Thinking that victory was now 
at hand the British followed into the narrow waters, while 
a horde of Indians who had come to lend their assistance 
gathered at each end of the American hne to shoot down 
the American crews. It was a battle at musket range with 
the preponderance of heavy guns, and of men to work 
them, on the British ships. Nevertheless, from 12.30 
o'clock, when the engagement became general, Arnold held 
his own until five o'clock, when the enemy 'thought 
proper to retire to about six or seven hundred yards' dis- 
tance," and fight thereafter until sundown at long range. 

The Americans had succeeded thus far by sheer pluck 
and good marksmanship. But they had suffered more 
than the enemy, and it was plain that on the next day 
the superior force must win. Accordingly when the usual 
fog of the season arose that night, Arnold and his little 
fleet (one of his gondolas had been sunk) slipped through 
the enemy's line, and so strove to reach Ticonderoga. 

On the 12th, when stopped by a head wind, some re- 
pairs were made, but one gondola sank in spite of efforts 
to save her. After that the Americans worked on with 
the oars as best they could, but all in vain. For on the 
13th, as they passed Split Rock, with Arnold in the Con- 
gress galley and four other rowboats guarding the rear, 
the enemy came upon them with a fair wind. The big 
ship Inflexible, with eighteen 12-pounders, and the schoon- 
ers Carleton and Maria, carrying twenty-six 6-pounders 
between them, opened fire at short range. The smallest 
of these was almost a match alone for Arnold's five row- 



6 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

boats. The force of the three British vessels was over- 
whelmingly superior, and the remainder of the British 
fleet was rapidly coming to join in. Moreover, the first 
broadside of the enemy so crippled the Washington galley 
that she surrendered. But to surrender in time of battle 
was not in the heart of Benedict Arnold. Ranging the 
Congress across the track of the big Inflexible he continued 
to fight on, while other gondolas met the fire of the two 
schooners with equal intrepidity. Even when a third of 
his crew had been shot down, and his galley was a wreck 
barely able to float, Arnold cheered on his men. But 
being unable tc inflict any more damage upon the enemy 
he directed the other captains to beach their vessels, cov- 
ered them as best he could while they did so, and then 
after running his own vessel on the rocks, he stood guard 
while all were set on fire. And he remained on board his 
own vessel until she was in flames, '' lest the enemy should 
get possession and strike his flag which was kept flying to 
the last." The flag was burned with the ship. 

Then he leaped ashore, formed his men in an orderly 
hne and marched away over a trail to Ticonderoga. 

The American fleet was destroyed, but the sacrifice was 
not in vain. Carleton sailed on until within view of Ticon- 
deroga, but there he paused. As Dodsley's (London) 
''Annual Register" said in reporting the affair, he had 
seen ''the countenance of the enemy," and the sight made 
him give up his project. 

By fighting on in the face of overwhelming odds and 
certain defeat — by fighting till the last gasp — the American 
flotilla turned back the invaders, and thus made straight 
the way that led to the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga. 

Though brief, the story of the frigate Randolph (one of 
the thirty-twos first built) is, in one respect, as splendid as 
any known to the annals of our navy. Under Capt. Nich- 



SEA FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION 7 

olas Biddle, on the 7th of March, 1778, she was cruising 
just east of the Barbadoes, in company with a small squad- 
ron of South Carolina vessels. In the course of the after- 
noon the British ship Yarmouth, of sixty-four guns, bore 
down on this squadron. Biddle waited for her, and as 
night came on, although she was, because of the size of 
her guns, of more than four times his force, he engaged 
her single-handed. He had often talked with John Paul 
Jones of the results that would follow if '^by exceedingly 
desperate fighting one of our ships" should '^ conquer one 
of theirs of markedly superior force"; he had hoped that 
he might be the captain upon whom fortune was to con- 
fer the honor of fighting such a battle; he had always been 
ready for the chance, and now the hour had come. Fling- 
ing the Stars and Stripes to the breeze he gave the enemy 
a broadside, and after the Yarmouth rephed, the spectators 
with leaping hearts saw that the Randolph fired three 
broadsides to the enemy's one. Biddle was shot down 
but, seated in a chair, cheered on his men until he saw that 
with guns alone he could not win. Then he ordered down 
the helm and was luffing up to grapple the enemy and 
fight it out on her deck by boarding, when fire reached the 
magazine beneath his feet and blew the Randolph out of 
water. Of the Randolph's crew four men only were saved. 

''Nick Biddle — poor, brave Nick — was the kind of naval 
captain that the God of battles makes," wrote John Paul 
Jones. It was so, and he was the first to set the pace for 
the men of our navy. 

Seven weeks later — on April 24, 1778 — the Httle Yan- 
kee sloop of war Ranger met the British sloop Drake off 
Carrickfergus, on the north-east coast of Ireland. 

While aiding the marine committee of Congress with 
his advice in 1775 John Paul Jones wrote that ''keeping a 
squadron in British waters, alarming their coasts, inter- 



8 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

cepting their trade, and descending now and then upon 
their least protected ports, is the only way that we, with 
our slender resources, can sensibly affect our enemy by sea 
warfare'' — a most important statement, memorable yet. 
He would wage war like the eagle, not the rattlesnake. 
Accordingly it was with much pleasure that he took com- 
mand of the ship Ranger — fourteen 9-pounders and four 6- 
pounders — built at Portsmouth, N. H., and bound for a 
cruise in European waters, although he was entitled to the 
command of a frigate. How the Ranger was driven on her 
outward passage because she carried the news of the sur- 
render of Burgoyne at Saratoga cannot be told here, nor 
can more than mention be given to the fact that after she 
had been refitted she sailed through the French fleet at 
Brest, fl3^ng the Stars and Stripes which was then, for the 
first time, saluted as a national flag by the guns of a for- 
eign navy. The Ranger sailed from Brest on April 10, 
1778, and on the 24th of April appeared off Carrickfergus, 
where the British twenty-gun sloop-of-war Drake was 
guard ship. Here he hove to and waited while the Drake 
came out to fight. The Drake^s sixteen 9-pounders and 
four 4-pounders were able to throw eighty pounds of shot 
at a broadside and she carried 157 men and officers. The 
Ranger could throw seventy-five pounds of shot at a broad- 
side and she carried a crew of 126. For the first time a 
ship under the Stars and Stripes was to meet a British 
ship in a fair fight, the preponderance of force on the 
British side being inconsiderable. 

It was late in the afternoon when the Drake drew up 
alongside the Ranger at musket range and hailed. The 
reply of Jones, ''Come on; we are waiting for you," had 
hardly been given when the battle began with broadsides. 

''Every shot told," said Jones speaking of the work of 
his gunners, "and they gave the Drake three broadsides 



SEA FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION 9 

for two right along, at that." As the two ships were go- 
ing off the wind together, the Ranger rolled down to port 
as the Drake came up to starboard. ''Quite early in the 
action I noticed that my quarter gunners had caught the 
Drake's period of roll and were timing to fire as their muz- 
zles went down and the enemy's side came up," continued 
Jones. Every shot struck into the hull, many of them go- 
ing through and through below the water-line. 

It was memorable gun practice, but Jones wished to 
carry the ship into port rather than sink her, and he told 
his men so. At that the gunners aimed at the Drake's rig- 
ging imtil her fore and maintopsail yards were brought 
down to the cap, and she was thrown off her course in such 
a way that the Ranger was able to luff across her stem 
and rake her, when the crew called for quarter. The bat- 
tle had continued, broadside to broadside, for one .hour 
and fifteen minutes. The Drake lost forty-two men killed 
and wounded. The Ranger lost in killed a lieutenant, and 
two enhsted men died of their wounds after the battle, 
while five others were severely wounded. 

By prompt work, such as drawing sails over the wounds 
in her side, the Drake was kept afloat until the carpenters 
could make repairs. Jones then took his prize to Brest, 
where he anchored on the 8th of May, having been out of 
port but twenty-eight days. It may be mentioned that 
in addition to the man-o'-war he had captured six mer- 
chantmen, of which three were brought into port and three 
destroyed. 

It is difficult now to reahze the full importance of this 
battle, for the ships were no larger than small coasters of 
the present day, and the guns were insignificant. But the 
fact is that no British ship had ever before surrendered to 
an enemy of equal force, not to mention one of less. Such 
was the power of the British at sea that even the ablest 



10 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

of the continental seamen supposed that it was impossible 
to win, gun for gun, in a battle with them. It was because 
Jones knew of this feeling that he asked his gunners not to 
sink the Drake in the battle. By carrying her into port 
he broke the spell. 

A wonderful demonstration of what may be accom- 
phshed by those who will fight to a finish was yet to come 
— the most wonderful, in fact, known to the history of sea 
battles. Congress had intended to give John Paul Jones 
the comimand of the Amsterdam-built frigate Indien, and 
Jones hoped to get her, even after she had been presented 
to the French king. The jealousy of French naval officers 
prevented this, and prevented for a long time also the 
giving of any command to the hero of the Ranger. The 
vexations to which Jones was subjected are mentioned here 
only because his ability to endure them was a part of the 
mental equipment that has distinguished the best of our 
naval officers since his day. But after a personal appeal 
to the king the old French Indiaman, famous in history 
as the Bonhomme Richard, was placed under his com- 
mand. She was well worn and rotten, but she was refitted 
and re-armed, beginning in February, 1779, and was ready 
for sea at the end of May. At this time she carried a bat- 
tery of six condemned 18-pounders (no others were to be 
had) on a lower deck that was four feet above still water, 
twenty-eight long 12-pounders on the main gun-deck, and 
eight long 9-pounders on the quarter-deck, or forty-two all 
told. Her crew numbered 375 of whom 50, including of- 
ficers, were Americans, 190-odd were nondescripts from the 
wharves and prisons, 122 were French soldiers, and 12 were 
French marines. 

Under orders to sail with the Bonhomme Richard was 
the new American frigate Alliance, commanded by a half- 
crazy French lieutenant named Pierre Landais, who had 



SEA FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION 11 

been cashiered from the French navy and thoroughly dis- 
graced, but had afterward secured a commission from 
Congress by misrepresentation and fraud. A French twenty- 
eight gun frigate, the Pallas, and the Vengeance, a twelve- 
gun brig, were also of the squadron. With such a crew and 
such consorts, Jones put to sea (June 19th). The Alliance 
promptly fouled the Richard and did so much damage that 
the squadron had to return to port for repairs. 

As it happened this disaster proved fortunate, for be- 
fore the ships were again ready for sea the British Govern- 
ment decided to exchange prisoners with the Americans, 
and 119 American sailors came across the Channel. Of 
these five had been so crippled by their treatment in the 
prisons of Great Britain that they were forever disqualified 
for service on any ship. The others shipped for the cruise 
with John Paul Jones. Among these Americans were 
Richard Dale and John Mayrant — Mayrant having been 
one of the four men who Hved to tell how Nicholas Biddle 
and the Randolph were blown out of water. Dale became 
the executive officer of the Richard and Mayrant one of the 
lieutenants. With these recruits the Richard had 149 or 
150 genuine Americans on board, a part of the Americans 
being given to the Alliance. 

But Jones had still another ill to suffer. Although he 
had been made commodore of the squadron he was com- 
pelled to sign, on the eve of his departure, a ''concordat" 
that placed all the captains on a par, and made the Richard 
a mere place of meeting where the captains might discuss 
policies. 

With one of the ships of his squadron commanded by 
a half-crazy captain, and with the other two commanded 
by men who had been trained to think a victory over an 
enemy of equal force a miracle; with his own ship rotten 
and armed in part with condemned guns, Jones put to sea 



12 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

on August 14, 1779, having previously written a letter in 
which he said: ''If I should fail and fall I wish this writing 
to witness that I take all blame upon myself." 

How the Richard cruised around the British coasts and 
made prizes until she had 140 prisoners in her hold, and 
how she made a descent on Leith and frightened the peo- 
ple as they had never been frightened before, need only be 
mentioned. But it must not be forgotten that in the mean- 
time Landais, of the Alliance, had mutinously refused to 
cooperate with the Richard. And then, on the afternoon 
of September 23, came the British Baltic fleet convoyed 
by the Serapis, Capt. Richard Pearson, a ship that carried 
twenty long 18-pounders on her lower deck, twenty-two 
long 9-pounders on her spar-deck, and eight 9-pounders on 
her quarter-deck — a ship able to throw 315 pounds of shot 
at a broadside where the Richard could throw but 258 
pounds even with her condemned 18-pounders working. 

By a manoeuvre which Pearson called clever the Rich- 
ard gained and held the weather gauge, and after consider- 
ing this for a time the British captain turned to his surgeon 
and said : 

"Doctor, the stranger is probably Paul Jones. If so, 
there is work ahead." 

Then at 7.15 o'clock Pearson hailed the Richard and 
for an answer received a broadside. 

The battle began at a range of 600 feet where every 
shot, even of the smaller guns, could penetrate if it struck 
home, and where, because the sea was smooth, even un- 
trained gunners were able to hit their target. The heavier 
battery of the Serapis under such conditions was sure to 
win in the end, and when at the end of twenty minutes 
the six 18-pounders on the Richard had to be aban- 
doned because two of them had exploded with disastrous 
effect, the broadside of the Richard was reduced to 204 



SEA FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION 13 

pounds of shot at a round as against the 315 of the Ser- 
apis. But worse fate was coming. The 18-pound shot 
of the Serapis were soon dismounting the main battery 
of the Richard, and Jones said to Dale, his Heutenant : 

''Dick, his metal is too heavy for us at this business. 
He is hammering us all to pieces." 

It was so. While Jones was speaking the 12-pounder 
battery of the Richard was reduced to five guns, and a Uttle 
later still all the 12-pounders were silenced, leaving only 
three 9-pounders on the quarter-deck to continue the bat- 
tle against the whole broadside of the Serapis. 

Nor was that all. So many shot had penetrated the 
Richard below the water-line that she was sinking in spite 
of the efforts of her crew at the pumps, and yet at this 
moment the Alliance under Landais came up under her 
port quarter and fired two broadsides into her. 

But there was yet one chance. The opportunity which 
Nicholas Biddle had sought — the opportunity where, by 
''exceedingly desperate fighting one of our ships" might 
"conquer one of theirs of markedly superior force," had 
come to John Paul Jones. The veering of the wind placed 
the Richard where she blanketed the Serapis, and then the 
Richard drifted into her antagonist and Jones with his own 
hands helped to lash the two together. It was while Jones 
was doing this work that a frightened gunner, on seeing 
that the water was gaining in the hold of the Richard, ran 
up on the quarter-deck and bawled for quarter. As the 
firing had meantime ceased for the moment on the Rich- 
ard, Captain Pearson at once answered the gunner's outcry 
by inquiring if the Richard had surrendered. But by this 
time Jones had returned to the quarter-deck and replied 
to Pearson's demand with the immortal words: 

"I have not yet begun to fight." 

From this time on the crew of the Richard, led by Jones, 



14 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

fought as if inspired. Going among the French soldiers 
who were serving as marines, Jones directed their fire at the 
British sailors who strove to cut the lashings holding the 
two ships together; and when he saw that their fire was 
not always accurate he took the muskets from their hands 
and fired them himself with deadly effect. 

Having by example worked the French to a degree 
of enthusiasm where they would fight, as they afterward 
fought under the great Napoleon, he turned his attention 
to the 9-pounders on the quarter-deck, and with his own 
hands aimed them at the mainmast of the Serapis imtil he 
had shot it away. Then the lower deck called him. The 
master at arms had released the British prisoners there 
because he supposed that the Richard was about to sink. 
To make matters more desperate a fire had been started 
by the guns of the Serapis and the magazine was in great 
peril. But Jones ordered some of the prisoners to the 
pumps, told others to throw water from the hold on the 
flames, and when one of them had been killed for refusing 
the others obeyed. 

In the meantime, before going to the hold, Jones had 
ordered Lieut. John May rant to prepare to lead boarders 
to the deck of the Serapis. Mayrant selected the men who 
had suffered in British prisons for that work, and when 
Jones returned to the deck they were standing ready, with 
pike and cutlass in hand. Moreover, Midshipman Fanning 
had just dropped a hand grenade from the end of the main- 
yard down through an open hatch into a pile of powder 
cartridges on the main deck of the Serapis, and the ex- 
plosion had demorahzed the British crew. With one glance 
Jones saw the situation and shouted to Mayrant: 

''Now is your time, John. Go in!" 

"With his fierce Huguenot blood boiling, and a hoarse 
yell, 'Remember Portsea jail,' the dauntless South Caro- 



SEA FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION 15 

linian led his band of Yankee sailors over the hammock 
netting and down into the waist of the Serapis.'^ 

The battle was won at last. Seeing the Americans in 
full possession of his deck, Captain Pearson with his own 
hands hauled down his flag. 

In one respect the victory was unique in the history of 
the sea. The Richard had been so badly injured that she 
sank in spite of every effort to save her; yet she captured 
the ship that destroyed her. 

There were but four really memorable battles afloat 
during the period of the Revolution, and in three of these 
the American ships were destroyed. The battle on Lake 
Champlain was important because of its influence on the 
war, and because it was a battle waged with the one pur- 
pose of fighting to the last gasp. The others are memor- 
able because they were examples of the kind of fighting 
that men of the navy are expected to do, while one of them 
shows what may be accomplished even after hope has fled. 

The fate of the ships in these battles is notable. We 
won the battles as we won the war — in spite of disasters 
that seemed overwhelming. The navy suffered even worse 
than the army. 

At the end of 1778 only four of the thirteen frigates 
that Congress had ordered in 1775 remained in the service 
and there were but fourteen vessels on the list all told, 
and of these three were destroyed at Penobscot. Five 
more were lost in 1780, including the Ranger, which was 
one of four captured at Charleston. At the end of the war 
but one remained, the Alliance. 

And yet, as Edward Everett Hale has pointed out, 
more men fought for the freedom of the United States on 
the sea than on the land, with the land mihtia counted in. 
The explanation of this is found in the fact that while the 
navy of the nation contained but forty-seven vessels all 



16 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

told, there were hundreds of State cruisers and privateers 
in commission. 

Thus Salem alone, in the course of the war, owned 150 
privateers. Those owned in Boston numbered 365. It is 
supposed that Massachusetts sent out at least 600 priva- 
teers, and that 60,000 citizens of that State went to sea in 
them. No other State had as many sailors afloat as Massa- 
chusetts, but there were hundreds from the other States. 
Then there were the State cruisers — armed ships owned 
and fitted out by the States, and sent to sea to cruise 
against the enemy. Massachusetts had 34. Although the 
United States had but 3,000,000 inhabitants " fighting for 
the holy cause of Liberty," there were more men fighting 
on the seas for that cause than were to be found in the 
whole British navy, including those stationed in the East 
Indies, or more than 87,000 men, that is to say. The 
British force on the coast of the United States during the 
war numbered but 26,000 men. 

These are among the most important facts in the his- 
tory of the Nation. Although the tonnage of the American 
privateers is nowhere stated, nor the number of guns, it is 
certain that at any time after the war was well under way 
the American force afloat was at least twice that of the 
British on the coast. If properly concentrated and handled 
there was force enough afloat to sweep the British navy not 
only from the American coast but from the face of the earth. 

But the people, instead of concentrating their sea forces 
into ships of the line and swift frigates, scattered them 
among hundreds of little brigs and schooners carrying less 
than a hundred men each and armed with 6-pounders and 
a Long Tom throwing nine pounds. These were sent out 
to hunt for merchantmen. Greed bhndfolded patriotism. 
A few privateers made great gains. Capt. Abraham Whip- 
ple left the service of the Nation to take command of a 



SEA FIGHTS AND FIGHTERS OF THE REVOLUTION 17 

privateer, and in one cruise sent in prizes that sold for 
more than a milhon dollars. Cruises that yielded a hun- 
dred thousand dollars or so (and a hundred thousand dollars 
looked larger then than a milhon now) were common — too 
common. For as the correspondence in Force's " Archives " 
shows, the naval ships were unable to secure crews and at 
times had to resort to impressment before they could go to sea. 

There is no instance on record where a splendid power 
was so foolishly wasted as was the sea power of the United 
States during the Revolution. 

Nor was the evil of the waste temporary. Many prizes 
were captured, much injury was done to the British mer- 
chant marine, and these losses had some influence, at last, 
in bringing the war to a close. The successes of the priv- 
ateers therefore led the people to have confidence in the 
privateer as a ship of war rather than in a navy. As the 
war went on no effort was made by Congress to repair the 
losses among the naval ships, let alone adding to the naval 
strength. And when at last the war ended, leaving but 
one ship, the Alliance, on the naval list, she was sold for a 
merchantman (1785). A nation that could command the 
services of a hundred thousand able seamen and that had 
within its borders the materials for the best ships that the 
world had ever seen, came to look upon a naval force as a 
menace to its liberties, and to believe that the interest of 
their merchants in legalized piracy would furnish a suf- 
ficient sea power for the defence of the Nation from foreign 
aggression. And it was only when certain nations of Africa 
had carried the theory of privateering to its legitimate 
conclusion by making war upon the United States in order 
to extort tribute that the people were made willing to be- 
gin the building of naval ships. As a Nation we owe a 
debt of gratitude to the Barbary pirates that ought never 
to be forgotten. 



II 

BUILDING A NEW NAVY 

On July 25, 1785 (just a month and twenty-two days after 
Congress sold the Alliance, the last of our warships of the 
Revolution), the Uttle schooner Maria, of Boston, Capt. 
Isaac Stevens, was captured by a corsair from Algiers as 
she was sailing past Cape St. Vincent. At Algiers, whither 
she was taken, she was confiscated to the use of the Dey, 
and all her crew were made slaves. And five days after 
the Maria was captured the ship Dauphin, of Philadel- 
phia, Capt. Richard O'Brien, was taken by Algerine corsairs 
fifty leagues west of Lisbon. The total number of persons 
thus enslaved by the African pirates was twenty-one. An 
agent who went to Algiers learned that the Dey would sur- 
render the prisoners for $59,496. 

Seven years later (May 8, 1792) the United States Sen- 
ate resolved that it would approve a treaty with Algiers 
for the release of the thirteen prisoners that yet survived, 
and for perpetual peace, provided the Dey did not demand 
a greater sum than $40,000 in hand and an annual tribute 
of $25,000. And John Paul Jones was asked to become 
the agent for carrying the blackmail to the Dey. Jones 
died (July 18, 1792) before the commission for this work 
reached him, and the negotiation was allowed to drag along 
another year. 

Algiers, in the meantime, had been prevented from 
committing further depredations by the activity of the 
Portuguese navy, but in 1793 the British agent at Algiers,, 



BUILDING A NEW NAVY 19 

who also represented Portugal at that court, negotiated a 
treaty for Portugal, without the knowledge of the Portu- 
guese Government, whereby the Algerine corsairs were al- 
lowed once more to sail on the Atlantic Ocean for further 
depredations on American commerce. In their first cruise 
the corsairs captured eleven different vessels with crews 
amounting to 109 men all told. 

The story of these aggressions was considered in Con- 
gress, but when a resolution was offered to the effect that 
"a naval force, adequate to the protection of the commerce 
of the United States against the Algerine corsairs, ought 
to be provided," it prevailed by a vote of only 46 to 44 — 
this in the House. And when on February 21 it was 
decided to build six frigates, the vote stood 43 to 41. The 
bill was signed by President Washington on March 27. 

In pursuance of this act three ships to rate as forty- 
four gun frigates, and three as thirty-eights, were begun. 
Joshua Humphreys, a naval architect of Philadelphia, was 
chiefly responsible for the design of these ships. His idea 
was to build such vessels "as in blowing weather would be 
an over-match for double-decked ships, or in Ught winds 
may evade action by outsailing them." In order to make 
these ships of as good quality as possible live oak and red 
cedar were used, and there was some delay in obtaining 
materials. In consequence of the delay the ships were not 
yet completed when the Dey of Algiers was induced to sign 
a treaty of peace (September 5, 1795), and thereupon the 
work on the ships came to an end, as had been provided in 
the act for building them. 

The opposition to the building of a naval force had 
been so strong in Congress that the friends of the measure 
had been obliged to agree that in case of peace with Al- 
giers the work of navy building should cease. One of the 
most potent arguments against building a navy was the 



20 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

poverty of the country. It was estimated that the six 
frigates would cost all told $847,960. That seemed an 
enormous sum. The estimate for the entire expense of 
the Government for the year 1796 amounted to $2,338,- 
543.94, and to increase this by the estimated cost of the 
frigates seemed too great. Congress therefore chose to pay 
annual tribute to the black potentate of Africa. But it 
was found in the end that the treaty with Algiers, including 
the redemption of prisoners, presents and bribes, required 
the payment of $992,463.25. In addition to this sum was 
an agreement to give a present of $20,000 whenever a new 
consul arrived, and $17,000 in presents biennially, besides 
''incidental and contingent presents." Nor was that all, 
for similar treaties with Tunis and Tripoli were obtained 
by similar means, though neither cost quite as much as 
that with Algiers. 

It was submission to blackmail in the hope of saving 
the expense of building a navy, but when the accounts had 
run for a number of years it was found that the expense 
of the blackmail, not to mention the humiliation of it, was 
twice as great as the cost of the frigates, and what was more 
the frigates had to be built after all. For it was observed 
by a more civilized people than the pirates that we were 
without ships to enforce our rights; and aggressions fol- 
lowed that compelled us to fight. 

These further aggressions grew chiefly from the disor- 
dered state of affairs that led to the French Revolution, 
though there were English aggressions, including the im- 
pressment of American seamen at the same time. Louis 
XVI of France was executed on January 21, 1793, and 
England immediately declared war on France. The French 
people, though in a state of anarchy, were yet able to fight. 
By a treaty made during the American Revolution Con- 
gress had agreed to aid France, in case of war, by defend- 



BUILDING A NEW NAVY 21 

ing her West India possessions. In consequence of this 
treaty France looked to the United States as aUies, and 
when it was seen that we would not keep the terms of that 
treaty, a series of aggressions was begun on American com- 
merce that were actually piratical. For commissions as 
privateers were issued to known pirates by French officials 
who intended to share in the plunder, and these piratical 
vessels looted every American ship that they could capture. 
In some cases they murdered the crews. More than three 
hundred American vessels were looted by French pirates 
and privateers in a single year. 

Nevertheless the proposition to go on with the work of 
building a navy encountered violent opposition in Congress, 
and the friends of the navy were obliged to accept a com- 
promise and complete three of the frigates only. The 
three selected under this compromise (act of April 20, 
1796) were the Constitution and the United States, each of 
forty-four, and the Constellation of thirty-eight guns. In 
the beginning the navy of the nation consisted of four con- 
verted merchantmen, of which the best ship (the Alfred y 
440 tons) carried for its largest guns eight 12-pounders» 
The Constitution (1,576 tons), the most memorable of the 
three ships of the new navy, carried for her main battery 
thirty long 24-pounders. While both France and Eng- 
land had at this time a few frigates armed with 24-pounders 
nearly all in both navies carried 18-pounders, and were 
of but little more than one thousand tons measurement. 
The United States Government, in establishing its new 
navy, began a policy of making such ships as it did build 
the most formidable, rate for rate, afloat, and with few 
lapses it has maintained that pohcy ever since. 

Unhappily the American people at this time were di- 
vided in politics to a large extent by sympathy for and op- 
position to the French leaders, and those who sympathized 



22 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

with France were strong in their opposition to every effort 
to resent French aggression by force. But this opposition 
was overcome when, in 1798, the three commissioners (C. 
C. Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry), who had been sent to 
negotiate a treaty with France, were told that a new treaty 
could be had only on condition that they pay the French 
Directory a large sum of money, and a further sum as a 
tribute to the French Government. On April 27, 1798, an 
act was passed providing for the purchase of twelve vessels 
carrying not more than twenty-two guns, and on April 
30 a regular Navy Department was created, the naval 
affairs of the Nation before that time having been under 
the care of the War Department. Benjamin Stoddert was 
the first Secretary of the Navy. On May 27 the Presi- 
dent was authorized to send the naval forces then in hand 
to cruise for the protection of American commerce. Later 
stiU the President was authorized to accept ships of war 
that might be offered by private citizens or municipalities. 
Finally, on July 16, an appropriation of $600,000 was 
made to complete the three frigates on which work had 
been suspended when peace was purchased of Algiers. 

Although there was no definite declaration, war was 
thus actually begun with France, and it is of the utmost 
importance to observe here that this war was brought on 
by the fact that the United States had had no naval force 
except the three frigates with which to defend its com- 
merce from aggression. 

The story of this war may be briefly told. 

The first battle of any consequence was that between 
the Constellation, the first of the 38-gun frigates of the 
new navy, and the French frigate Insurgent. 

The Constellation, under Capt. Thomas Truxton, was 
cruising off St. Kitts on February 9, 1799, when the In- 
surgent was seen. Three hours later the Constellation luffed 



BUILDING A NEW NAVY 23 

out on the port quarter of the enemy and opened fire with 
a broadside that was promptly returned. For a time the 
ships worked their guns as rapidly as they could, but it 
soon appeared that the guns of the Constellation were too 
heavy for those on the Insurgent, and the Frenchman, 
with most admirable pluck, attempted to board. In this 
manoeuvre, however, he was frustrated by the loss of his 
maintopmast, and the Constellation crossed his bow and 
raked him fore and aft. Then the Constellation took a 
position off the Insurgent's starboard bow and poured in 
broadsides as rapidly as the American crew could work 
their guns. After an hour of this the Constellation, hav- 
ing the advantage in speed, worked around to the port 
bow of the Insurgent and poured in broadsides until there 
was not a single gun left fit for action on the Insurgent's 
main deck. Even then the Frenchmen fought on, using 
their quarter-deck battery of 12-pounders, until the Con- 
stellation took a position astern, ready to rake once more. 
The French flag was then hauled down. 

The battle is interesting chiefly because it shows the 
advantage of the system or theory which prevailed when 
the American ships were planned. The Constellation car- 
ried twenty-eight 24-pounders where the Insurgent carried 
twenty-six 18-pounders. On the upper decks the Constel- 
lation carried twenty long 12-pounders where the Insurgent 
carried ten long 12-pounders and four short 36-pounders. 
The Insurgent was badly outclassed. The Insurgent car- 
ried a crew of 409, of whom 29 were killed and 41 wounded. 
The Constellation lost only 2 kiUed and 3 wounded out of 
309. The men of the Constellation had learned to aim their 
gims and those of the Insurgent had not. 

The next battle to be noted was that fought between 
the Constellation and the French frigate Vengence, on Feb- 
ruary 2, 1800. Before going on this cruise the Constellation 



24 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

had been provided with a smaller battery — long 18-pound- 
ers instead of long 24's. 

On quarter deck and forecastle she carried twelve 
long 12-pounders and ten 24-pounder carronades, the car- 
ronade being a Hght, short gun that at best was worthless 
at ranges above two hundred and fifty yards, and as usu- 
ally loaded with two shot, was of but little use unless within 
pistol range. The Vengence carried twenty-eight long 18- 
pounders on her main deck with sixteen long 12-pounders 
and eight 42-pound carronades on her upper decks. As 
the Vengence carried a crew of 330 men to the 310 on 
the Constellation, the Frenchman had a clear preponderance 
of force. 

It was eight o'clock at night before the Constellation 
overhauled the enemy. Truxton, having noted the en- 
emy's force, ordered the gunners to reserve fire until he 
gave the word, and do their work dehberately. These or- 
ders proved hard to obey because the enemy opened fire 
with stem chasers. But the return fire was withheld until 
just off the weather quarter of the enemy when a broadside 
was given that brought blood spurting from her scuppers, 
while the shrieks of her crew, heard above the roar of the 
cannon, told of work done at close range. In the firing 
that followed, the American crew fired so rapidly that it 
became necessary to dip up water to cool the guns. But 
there was no loss of accuracy in this speed, for an American 
who was a prisoner on the Vengence reported that 186 
round shot struck her hull in the course of the battle. And 
at 12.30 in the morning of the 3d the fire of the Vengence 
was silenced. 

But just in the moment of victory it was observed that 
the shrouds and stays of the mainmast on the Constellation 
had all been shot away. All hands were called to repair 
the damage, but before preventers could be passed a roll of 



BUILDING A NEW NAVY 25 

the ship threw the mast over the rail, and the men stationed 
within the top, with Midshipman James C. Jarvis, were all 
lost. Jarvis had been warned of his danger but he refused 
to leave his post. The Vengence escaped when the Con- 
stellation lost her mast, but Capt. Thomas Truxton and his 
men had set the pace for the new navy. 

It was during this war, and to meet the many priva- 
teers and pirates swarming in the West Indies, that the 
swift little Baltimore clipper schooners Enterprise and Ex- 
periment, each armed with twelve long 6-pounders, were 
built. In 1800, in the course of a six-months' cruise, the 
Enterprise, under Lieut. John Shaw, captured eight priva- 
teers with forty-seven guns. The Experiment, under 
Lieut. Charles Stewart, made fewer captures only because 
she was less fortunate in finding enemies to fight, and the 
two together simply swept the piratical fleet off the seas. 

It was a brief war, but memorable on that account, 
for it was fought out by the navy alone. The Americans 
did not lose a fight, and peace was concluded on September 
30, 1800. The French, encouraged by the fact that the 
United States had only three frigates, and further by the 
speeches made in Congress against the building of a navy, 
began her aggressions against American commerce. An 
alphabetical list of the claims filed with the State Depart- 
ment shows that the spoliations by the French amounted 
to $7,290,774.32^. Through the effort of Congress to get 
on without a navy the commerce of the country suffered 
that loss; but in the end (as in the case with the Barbary 
pirates), a navy had to be provided and a war fought out. 

This most expensive lesson was heeded by the Admin- 
istration of the day, but was ignored by the opposition. 
By an act approved on February 25, 1799, Congress provided 
for the building of six 74-gun ships of the line at an ex- 
pense of $2,403,800.94, besides smaller vessels, and in a 



26 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

report by Secretary of the Navy Stoddert, dated January 
12, 1801, he said: 

''When the United States own twelve ships of seventy- 
four guns, and double the number of strong frigates, and 
it is known that they possess the means of increasing with 
facihty their naval strength, confidence may be indulged 
that we may then avoid those wars in which we have no 
interest, and without submitting to be plundered." 

Unhappily the hope of peace thus proposed was frus- 
trated by a change of national policy. 



Ill 

THE WAR OF 1812— ITS ORIGIN 

The most depressing, but withal the most instructive period 
in the history" of the American navy is that preceding the 
War of 1812. The story has been told in full, and without 
prejudice but once — in the history written by Henry 
Adams. Every man who has failed to read that work is 
more or less ignorant of the facts. Though it is most im- 
portant to the welfare of the Nation, the story can be but 
briefly summarized here. 

The foreign poUcy of the Government of the United 
States, as conducted by Thomas Jefferson during that 
period, was laid down by him in letters to his friends rather 
than in public documents. In a letter to Thomas Paine 
he said : 

'^ Determined as we are to avoid, if possible, wasting 
the energies of our people in war and destruction, we shall 
avoid implicating ourselves with the Powers of Europe, 
even in support of principles which we mean to pursue. 
We believe we can enforce those principles as to ourselves 
by peaceable means." To a celebrated Pennsylvania 
peacemaker, Dr. Logan, he explained how he was to use 
peaceable means to compel the compUance of foreign 
nations. He said : 

'^Our commerce is so valuable to them that they will 
be glad to purchase it, when the only price we ask is to do 
us justice. I believe that we have in our own hands the 
means of peaceable coercion; and that the moment they 



28 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

see our Government so united as that we can make use of 
it, they will for their own interest be disposed to do us 
justice." 

To make clear these important words of Mr. Jefferson 
it must be noted that in 1801, the year he became Presi- 
dent, the total exports of the United States amounted to 
$94,115,925, while the imports aggregated $111,363,511. 
Mr. Jefferson believed that the profits of foreign merchants 
on this commerce were so great that we had only to with- 
draw our trade from any nation to compel its people, or 
rather its Government, to do us justice. A withdrawal of 
trade was his means of ^'peaceable coercion." And special 
emphasis should be laid on the word coercion, for it was not 
a matter of Christian forbearance. Mr. Jefferson espe- 
cially disavowed what he called the Quaker principle of 
turning the other cheek when one had been smitten. 

"That a navy caused more dangers than it prevented 
or corrected was one of the deepest convictions that un- 
derlay the policy of Jefferson." Accordingly one of his 
earlier acts as President was to lay up five of the war- 
ships at Washington. Then the work on the six ships of 
the line, begun by President Adams, was suspended, and 
it was never renewed. In 1800 the Administration had 
expended $3,448,716 on the navy. Mr. Jefferson cut down 
the expense in 1802 to $915,562. The pubhc debt when 
Jefferson came in was $83,038,051. In 1802 it had been 
reduced to $80,712,632, and it must be said here that this 
debt was steadily reduced year by year until 1812, when 
it amounted to but $45,209,738. On the face of these fig- 
ures it would appear that the policy which Mr. Jefferson 
inaugurated, and Mr. Madison continued, as far as possi- 
ble, brought nothing but prosperity to the Nation. But 
history tells a very different story. 

England's war with the French Republic was to close 



THE WAR OF 1812— ITS ORIGIN 29 

with the peace of Amiens on March 27, 1802, but her war 
on Napoleon was to begin April 29, 1803. ''Two powerful, 
angry, and merciless gods stood ready, opening their jaws 
wide against each other"; and we were ''sitting down be- 
tween both," as the supine Christian Delawares sat down 
before the massacre of Gnadenhutten. 

For years an infamous wrong had been steadily per- 
petrated by the British nation on the American people. 
Press gangs from British men-o'-war, whenever convenient, 
boarded American merchantmen and carried off American 
citizens who were compelled to serve in the British navy 
without pay unless they condoned the wrong by volun- 
teering. It was a growing evil, especially after the war on 
Napoleon was begun, but the fact that government existed 
in order to protect individuals in their rights was not then 
so well understood in this country as it will be some time, 
and the evil was ignored for years. 

What attracted the attention of Congress most in the 
line of British aggression was the British determination to 
render American over-sea commerce tributary to the Brit- 
ish Government. It was theorj^ of the British Govern- 
ment that American ships could not carry on the trade 
between France and the French colonies in time of war 
because French law prohibited such trade in time of peace. 
This doctrine was for a time admitted, and the American 
merchant then imported the French colonial produce into 
the United States, landed it, and paid the duty upon it. 
It was then reshipped to European ports, and so great was 
the superiority of American ships that even with such a 
handicap they could compete successfully with British 
ships making a direct voyage. In consequence of this 
success the British extended their rule so far that the Brit- 
ish courts presumed to go behind the certificates issued by 
the American customs officials and declare that the im- 



30 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 



portation of the goods into the United States was 
never made. Indeed the whole over-sea trade of the 
United States was declared to be based on fraud and 
perjury. 

British writers and those who sympathize with them 
have asserted that the British Government laid oppressive 
measures upon American commerce because it was obliged 
to do so in its death struggle with Napoleon — because in^ 
no other way could the vivifying produce from French 
colonies be kept from the European nations under Napo- 
leon's control. But the truth is that our commerce was 
oppressed to keep all that trade in British ships, or, faihng 
that, to compel the American ships to enter a British port 
and pay a duty on the produce before carrying it to a con- 
tinental port. The Httle island of Heligoland, off the Ger- 
man coast, was then one of England's most valued posses- 
sions because it was such a convenient station for shipping 
goods to the continent in spite of Napoleon's decrees. It 
was greed of trade, as was more than once admitted in Par- 
Hament and by British writers of that day, that inspired 
British aggressions on American conmierce. And it was 
because the British Admiralty refused to give fair pay or 
decent food to the common sailors in the navy that press 
gangs had to be sent out to get men to man British 
ships. 

In carrying out their commercial policy the Admiralty 
were not content to cniise for American merchantmen on 
the high seas alone; a squadron was stationed off Sandy 
Hook (1805), and every vessel bound into or out of the 
port of New York was stopped and examined. And when- 
ever by any interpretation of papers or of private corre- 
spondence a ship could be supposed to violate the British 
rules, it was placed under a prize crew and sent to Halifax. 
And at the same time American seamen were taken from 



THE WAR OF 1812— ITS ORIGIN 31 

American ships with ruthless hand — often with no pre- 
tence that they were British citizens — as when red Indians 
and negroes were taken. 

On February 5, 1802, General Leclerc and a French 
army took possession of Cap Francais, Santo Domingo. It 
was found that all the supphes on the island had come 
from the United States. As he needed them Leclerc con- 
fiscated aU that he could get hold of, and one of his generals 
told the American consul that the American people were 
the scum of the earth. Then the consul was expelled and 
many Americans were maltreated. That was Jefferson's 
first warning that Napoleon, who was already master of 
France, was to prove unfriendly. In the course of 1801 
fifty-two American merchantmen were taken into port by 
French armed vessels. 

This is not to complain or scold about the British ag- 
gressions, or even of the French. It was entirely himaan 
for a strong government Uke the British, when engaged in 
a mighty struggle — a struggle that called for the use of 
every resource — to take advantage of the weakness of a 
growing young rival, and especially of a rival that dehb- 
erately made itself weak. The American pohcy at this 
time invited the outrages that were received, and the peo- 
ple who supported the pohcy deserved their fate. Only 
the sailors and their wives and httle ones, who suffered 
under a system they were powerless to change, should 
rouse any feeling of S3mipathy. The object in view, when 
describing the many acts of aggression as vividly as possi- 
ble, is only to portray the situation as it was. And if 
nothing is said in detail about French and Spanish ag- 
gression it is because we would have been able, if unham- 
pered by the British at that time, to make short work 
with any force either might have sent against us. There 
was talk— faint talk— of declaring war against both Eng- 



32 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

land and France. To do so would have been the making 
of the Nation, but nothing came of it. 

Through continued aggressions the time for a trial of 
^'peaceable coercion" came at last. So confident was Mr. 
Jefferson of success in his policy that he wrote : 

^' We begin to broach the idea that we consider the whole 
Gulf Stream as of our waters, in which hostilities are to be 
frowned on at present, and prohibited" as soon as possi- 
ble. ^'We shall never permit another privateer to cruise 
within it." He wrote this while yet determined to build 
at Washington a dock ''within which our present [naval] 
vessels may be laid up dry and under cover from the sun," 
an idea that he had promulgated in his second annual 
message. 

To compel the enemy to cease their intolerable out- 
rages, a non-importation act was passed. We refused to 
import British beer, playing-cards, and some other articles 
of equal importance. This was to end not only the out- 
rages, but it was to compel British ships of war to cease 
cruising in the Gulf Stream. 

How it led only to further outrages is known to every 
school-boy. ''Confiscation of American ships and cargoes 
under piratical orders of council and murderous attacks 
upon American crews became as common as gales at sea." 
The oft-described attack upon the frigate Chesapeake by a 
frigate that she might have beaten easily if commanded by 
a Farragut, did but emphasize the contempt which all 
Englishmen felt for the American people. It was demon- 
strated, though neither Jefferson nor his party would see 
it, that "interest" of manufactures was not having the 
influence it had been supposed to have. The unfortunate 
workman who made playing-cards for the American mar- 
ket was "laid off," but his complaints were unheard be- 
cause the infinitely more influential British naval officer 



THE WAR OF 1812— ITS ORIGIN 33 

found more profit in robbing American ships than in any 
pohcy of just deahng with the young repubhc. Moreover 
the British ship-owner was growing rich, now that his only 
competitor was being driven from the high seas. The 
ship-owner and the naval officer were entirely wilhng that 
the card-making workman should go to the poor-house. 

But the loss of our over-sea commerce was nothing, and 
the enslavement of our seamen was a matter of small con- 
sequence, when they are compared with the degradation 
of American manhood that followed on the pohcy that was 
pursued. To stifle the honest indignation that arose with 
each fresh outrage the people were assured by the Admin- 
istration that to build a navy would necessitate levying 
taxes that had been odious under the preceding adminis- 
tration. Appeals were made to their '' interest" instead 
of to their sense of honor and right. Worse yet, members 
of Congress with infamous iteration declared that it would 
be impossible to succeed on the ocean in a war with Great 
Britain. 

Thus a motion was made in the House, April 20, 1808, 
^Ho equip the frigates." One member supported the 
measure and seven opposed it. Holland expressed the 
views of the majority when he said that '4f we were to at- 
tempt to meet the British on the sea it would be the only 
way in which we could be materially injured by them." 
D. R. WilUams said he ''felt himself at a loss to find a term 
sufficiently expressive of his abhorrence of a navy. He 
would go a great deal further to see it burnt than to ex- 
tinguish the fire." 

On March 22, 1810, a resolution 'Hhat the mihtary and 
naval estabhshments ought to be reduced" was carried, 
seventy-seven out of one hundred members present voting 
for it. A bill ordering the sale of all the armed vessels of 
the United States except three frigates and three smaller 



34 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

vessels, that Randolph introduced on April 20, 1810, failed 
by a narrow majority. 

''The idea of our meeting Great Britain on the ocean 
is too ludicrous to be repelled by serious argument," said 
Congressman Nicholson in the House and he was applauded. 
He appealed to the fears of the people as well as to their 
''interest." The pluck of Nicholas Biddle was forgotten. 
The work of John Paul Jones was never mentioned. Even 
the lesson of the more recent successes of Truxton, the 
dash of Sterett and Decatur, and the inunolation of Somers 
were dehberately ignored. Worse yet, when the Chesa- 
peake was attacked the Administration postponed action 
by talk that was intended to deceive, and by building gun- 
boats that were known to be worthless for war. "Peace- 
able coercion" — an embargo on commerce — was to avenge 
the wrong! 

In all the discussion about the navy the only memor- 
able words in defence of the service were those spoken by 
Dana, of Connecticut, who told the opposition that they 
were adopting the "terrapin policy" and that, too, when 
they "had not provided any shell." They were Hterally 
striving to substitute the terrapin for the eagle. 

From a contemplation of the supposed invulnerable 
character of the British navy some Congressmen came to 
believe that it would be impossible to defend our ports; 
and Congressman R. Nelson, on January 23, 1807, said in 
the House: "When the enemy comes let them take our 
towns, and let us retire into the country." In fact a time 
came when, to compel the enemy "to do us justice," a 
bill was passed to lay "a Hne of blocks and chains across 
New York harbor." 

It was in this condition of affairs that John Randolph 
did one thing in Congress that is forever memorable. For^ 
clothed in a riding habit, carrying a whip and followed by a 



THE WAR OF 1812— ITS ORIGIN 35 

pack of hounds, he strode into the House, and told the cow- 
ering members that they could not be kicked into fighting. 

The people of Europe, reading the words and the Acts 
of Congress, came to hold the American people as cowards 
whose sole motive in life was ''interest." 

The character of the Nation was then forming as the 
character of a child is formed. We seemed rapidly drifting 
to a condition where the contempt of Europe would have 
been fully justified, but happily a war party had been 
springing up in Congress and the Nation. It is of the 
utmost importance to observe that it was the policy of 
''peaceable coercion" that originated this war party. Jef- 
ferson had supposed that a navy caused more dangers than 
it prevented or corrected, but it was at last to be demon- 
strated that the Nation was suffering intolerable outrages 
because it had no navy with which to resent them. John 
C. Calhoun and Henry Clay, the leaders of the new war 
party, saw that American forbearance encouraged while 
American embargos provoked increased aggressions. It is 
manifest now beyond dispute, as it should have been mani- 
fest then, that if one ship of the line had been afloat in New 
York harbor there would have been no blockading squad- 
ron off Sandy Hook to take American seamen from Amer- 
ican ships in American waters. 

With the rise of the war party the end of the humilia- 
tion of the American people came into view, though it was 
at long range. The discussion in the Congress that met 
at the end of 1811 is most instructive. Congress by a 
working majority was determined to fight rather than sub- 
mit longer, but, so far as the record shows, not a single 
word was said in any of the discussions of measures of 
preparations for war, to indicate that any member be- 
Heved that our navy could accomplish anything on the 
high seas. The vessels in the British navy, in that year, 



36 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

numbered 1,042, of which 254 were ships of the Hne, and 
282 were frigates or razees. There were 101 of this great 
fleet already on the American station. The American navy 
numbered 17 ships, of which not one was a battleship. The 
British had more than 27,000 naval guns where we had 442. 

With that mighty sea power staring them in the face, 
Congress turned to the land. Clay said that ''the Nation 
could act with unquestionable success" there. The British 
were to be swept ''from the continent" by a host of volun- 
teers and militia who would dash across "Canada" with 
" the impetuosity of Niagara." The only fighting afloat was 
to be that of "private enterprise" — the privateer. It was 
with the utmost difficulty that means were secured for fit- 
ting out such ships as we had, and when they were fitted 
out the faint-hearted Madison and his Cabinet determined 
to keep the ships in port where the mihtia and volunteers 
could fully protect them. 

The last act of "peaceable coercion" by self-strangu- 
lation was passed by Congress on March 1, 1809, and 
amended in June. It provided that for a specified period 
no trade should be carried on between the United States 
and either England or France. It was provided also that 
in case either party to the offensive measures should re- 
lent, after the expiration of the Hmit, the embargo should 
be revived against the unrelenting power. By deliberate 
falsehood Napoleon led the Administration, Madison be- 
ing then President, to believe that his decrees had been 
revoked, and Madison proclaimed that commerce with 
Great Britain must cease on February 2, 1811. 

In answer to this a British squadron once more ap- 
peared off New York, and the President, driven on by the 
war party, ordered an American squadron to sea to pro- 
tect the flag. The time when the American people would 
find themselves was at hand. 



IV 

LEARNING THE ART OF NAVAL WARFARE 

Before describing the work of the navy in the War of 
1812 it is important to tell how it happened that we had 
a navy after Jefferson had declared in his second annual 
message a wish to build a dock at Washington "within 
which our present vessels may be laid up dry and under 
cover from the sun." Fortunately for the navy, and 
therefore most fortunately for the country, the Barbary 
pirates began to make trouble. The Bashaw of Tripoli 
learned that the tribute paid him amounted to but Httle 
if any more than what was given to a minister of the court 
of Tunis, the minister having received $40,000, '^ besides 
presents.'' As the American representative at TripoU was 
unable to increase the tribute, war was declared against 
the United States on May 14, 1801. The Bey of Tunis, 
being not satisfied with the tribute paid him according to 
treaty, demanded 10,000 stand of arms at about this time 
under penalty of war. In May, 1800, the American war- 
ship George Washington arrived in Algiers with the annual 
tribute. When the tribute had been delivered, the dey 
ordered the Washington, as the ship of a vassal nation, 
to carry his tribute to the Sultan of Turkey, of whom he 
was a vassal, and the Washington was obliged to do it. 
And she was obliged to fly the Algerine flag above the 
American while on the voyage. 

The historians of the Nation excuse the American pay- 
ments of tribute by pleading poverty first, and then noting 



38 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

that all the Powers of Europe paid tribute to the Bar- 
bary pirates. It is therefore necessary to observe that the 
great Powers of Europe paid tribute because by encourag- 
ing the pirates to destroy the commerce of weak nations 
the commerce of the strong was able to flourish all the 
more. An English consul made peace between Portugal 
and Algiers, as already noted, in order to enable the Al- 
gerine corsairs to get at the American merchantmen. But 
the Americans paid tribute because they thought that 
would be cheaper than fighting. It is a memorable mat- 
ter because well-meaning people even now are heard to 
argue that it would be cheaper to submit to foreign aggres- 
sion than to build battleships. 

The Tripohtans having declared war, it was necessary 
to send a squadron to the Mediterranean or else abandon 
all commerce in that region, for there was no way of ap- 
plying ^'peaceable coercion" to the bashaw. Fifteen of 
the vessels that had been employed in the war with France 
had been retained in the navy, and of these the frigates 
President, Philadelphia, and Essex, and the schooner En- 
terprise, were sent to overawe the pirates. Two Tripolitan 
corsairs were found at Gibraltar and effectually blockaded 
there. On August 1, 1801, the Enterprise fell in with the 
corsair Tripoli. The pirate fought such a desperate battle 
that it was only after he had lost twenty men killed and 
thirty wounded out of a crew of eighty that he surren- 
dered. For gallant conduct in this battle Lieutenant Ster- 
ett, commanding the Enterprise, was so highly praised by 
the people of his country that Congress felt obliged to vote 
him a sword. 

When it came to an attack upon Tripoli, however, it 
was found that the ships lacked the necessary force. We 
had no ships of the fine, and nothing could be done beyond 
maintaining a blockade. Moreover the frigates were of too 



LEARNING THE ART OF NAVAL WARFARE 39 

deep draught for such work, and as the pirates could not 
be left free without the destruction of all American com- 
merce in that sea, Congress was induced to build two brigs, 
the Siren and Argus, that mounted sixteen 24-pounder 
carronades and two long 12-pounders, and the schooners 
Nautilus and Vixen, mounting twelve 18-pound carron- 
ades and two long 6's. This was done in 1803. In the 
course of this year (October 30) the frigate Philadelphia 
was lost. Under Capt. Wilham Bainbridge she was chasing 
a corsair among the reefs off Tripoli when she ran aground 
and could not be extricated. Here the TripoHtans boarded 
lier, making her entire crew of 315 men, all told, prisoners. 
She was then floated and moored in the harbor close under 
the guns of the forts. A court-martial decided that ''Capt. 
William Bainbridge acted with fortitude and conduct in 
the loss of his ship . . . and that no degree of censure 
should attach itself to him." 

A fine ship was lost from our little navy and her crew 
were enslaved. It was an appalling accident, but it gave 
some men of the navy opportunity for a deed that strength- 
ened the grip of all naval men upon the hearts of their coun- 
trymen. In December Bainbridge sent a message to the 
blockading squadron suggesting that an expedition be sent 
into the harbor to destroy the Philadelphia. 

No more dangerous expedition, apparently, had ever 
been proposed to American seamen. The Philadelphia 
was moored within range of a hundred guns, and she was 
surrounded by well-armed and well-manned gunboats. 
Her crew far outnumbered any volunteer crew that could 
be sent against her. But when the matter was proposed 
in the blockading squadron there was instantly a strong 
competition among all the available officers for the honor 
of going in. Stephen Decatur, Jr., won. A little ketch 
-had been captured. Under Decatur a crew that numbered 



40 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

eighty men was selected from the host of volunteers. 
Among them were Lieut. James Lawrence and Midshipman. 
Thomas Macdonough. 

On the night of February 16, 1804, the little ketch ap- 
peared off Tripoli. She was piloted by a man who knew 
the harbor and talked the Tripoli tan language. In her 
hold were quantities of combustibles and her crew were 
under such an order as that which inspired the men who 
stormed Stony Point under ''Mad" Anthony Wayne — they 
were told to use cold steel only. Near midnight, as the 
ketch drifted slowly under the bows of the Philadelphia, sl 
sentinel hailed her. The pilot replied that the ketch was 
a merchantman from Malta, and that, having lost her an- 
chors in a gale, he wanted to make fast to the frigate until 
morning. Then he began to give a Ust of goods with 
which he said the ketch was loaded, and that proved so 
attractive to every barbarian within hearing that the de- 
sired permission was given. For with the exception of 
half a dozen men well disguised, the crew of the ketch 
were stowed well out of sight. Just then a breeze took the 
ketch aback, and she began drifting away; but Decatur, 
with not a tremor in his voice, sent two men in a yawl with 
a line to the frigate's fore chains. With a line to the frig- 
ate the crew of the ketch began hauUng in and warping 
her to the frigate's side, but while yet far away a pirate, 
who was leaning out from a port, saw some of her crew that 
were in uniform, and began to shout: 

' ' Americanos ! Americanos ! ' ' 

At that another pirate cut the rope that connected the 
ketch to the frigate, but before he had done this the Amer- 
ican seamen had given a pull that brought their vessel 
alongside, and then, shouting ''Boarders away!" Decatur 
leaped into the Philadelphia's rigging. Cutlasses in hand 
his men swarmed over the rail, and in through the ports. 



LEARNING THE ART OF NAVAL WARFARE 41 

On deck they formed in squads and charged fore and aft, 
hewing down all opposition. Not a word did they utter 
and the only sounds they made were the stroke and thud 
of steel, while the pirates fell to the deck or leaped in wild 
haste into the sea. Within ten minutes Decatur stood 
upon the quarter-deck, master for the moment of a frigate. 

Then swiftly but not hurriedly the combustibles were 
passed up from the ketch, placed in nooks previously des- 
ignated and fired. So thoroughly was the work done that 
the party that had been sent to the berth-deck with diffi- 
culty escaped the flames that had been kindled above. In 
twenty-five minutes from the moment when the ketch ar- 
rived Decatur returned to her, leaving the frigate doomed 
beyond hope. His crew had all escaped injury of every 
kind so far, but now new dangers surrounded them. The 
flames might at any moment reach the magazine and hurl 
the Philadelphia in fragments upon them, while every 
pirate gun within range was now aimed at them by the 
light of the flames they had kindled. The enemy's shot 
splashed water over them as if it were spray from a grow- 
ing surf while they bent to their oars, and as time passed 
even the guns of the Philadelphia, heated by the fire, began 
to throw shot at them. 

And yet in the midst of the infernal fire that roared 
about them that crew, seeing that their work was well 
done, ceased rowing and gave three cheers. 

Not a man was lost in the expedition. Decatur was 
promoted to the rank of captain, and Congress gave him a 
sword. 

A little later it was determined to try to destroy the 
shipping in the harbor of TripoH by exploding a floating 
mine in the midst of the anchorage. The ketch with which 
Decatur had destroyed the Philadelphia, and which had 
been renamed the Intrepid, was loaded with a hundred 



42 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

barrels of powder and an immense quantity of projectiles. 
Master Commandant Richard Somers was selected to com- 
mand this expedition, and his lieutenant was Henry Long- 
fellow, an uncle of the poet. With them went Midshipman 
Joseph Israel as a stowaway, and ten sailors selected from 
a host of volunteers. 

On the night of September 4, 1804, when a misty fog 
hung low over the waters, Somers headed into the harbor. 
The men of the squadron watched while the little ketch 
faded slowly into the fog, and then waited in painful silence 
for signal or sound to tell what she was doing. Finally a 
hght that was travelling in a waving line, as if a man were 
running along the deck with it, was seen where the ketch 
was supposed to be. It disappeared almost as soon as 
seen, but the next instant a mighty flame shot high in air, 
burning shells were hurled far through the night, followed 
by a heavy shock and a deafening roar. The ketch had 
grounded on a reef, and while held there was attacked by 
three gunboats. And when the pirates in overwhelming 
numbers came swarming over her rail, Somers fired the 
powder in her hold. He had declared that he would not 
be taken ahve, and he kept his word. 

These old tales of the navy are memorable chiefly be- 
cause they show how the American sailors carried them- 
selves, and how they were trained in the arts of war in the 
days when the Administration was anxious to build a dock 
at Washington in which to lay up all our naval vessels, 
''dry and under cover from the sun." It was the work of 
our navy that kept such ships as we had in condition for 
war. WTiile the Administration frowned; while John Ran- 
dolph, the leading orator of Congress, was saying that 
the mere sight of a marine made his gorge rise ; in spite of 
the fact the bashaw received tribute amounting to $60,000 
when he finally made peace; the men of the navy fought 



LEARNING THE ART OF NAVAL WARFARE 43 

well and the people applauded their deeds. The briUiancy 
of the naval exploits is the only touch of Ught in our history 
of the period; but it is not to be forgotten that the mere 
fact that a naval force was thus needed demonstrated the 
absurdity of the idea that peace could be maintained by 
appeals to ^'interest." 

Then as now the American people were long-sufYering. 
Moreover they were deceived by their chosen representa- 
tives — as they are not now, thanks to an unmuzzled press. 
They believed that '^interest" might yet induce the grasp- 
ing Powers of Europe to jdeld to '^ peaceable coercion," and 
for years they made no complaint when the bearing that 
the gallant deeds done on the coast of Africa might have 
had on our growing troubles with Europe was deUberately 
ignored at Washington. Nevertheless the people were to 
be trusted then as now. When at last they learned the 
truth of the situation, though whoUy unprepared for such 
a conflict, they silenced the whole Jeffersonian coterie and 
drove even the timid Madison to war. 



IMPORTANT SEA BATTLES OF THE 
WAR OF 1812 

War was declared on June 18, 1812. The call to arms 
found the navy ready. One gropes for words with which 
to give adequate praise to the men of the American navy 
for their patriotism in remaining in the service under the 
multiplied indignities that were heaped upon them in the 
years immediately preceding the War of 1812. And they 
not only remained, but with all their power they strove 
to create some confidence in the service. Finding that the 
Administration had determined to keep the ships under 
the guns of the forts. Captains Bainbridge and Stewart 
went to the President, and with abundant remonstrances — 
by their manly presence as well — stiffened his limp back- 
bone until he gave permission for a few ships to go to sea 
for one effort against the enemy. 

So the Constitution got away, and on falling in with the 
British squadron off the New Jersey beach made the most 
inspiring race known to the history of the American coast. 
The superiority of the American ship and the resourceful- 
ness of the American crew to this day give heart to every 
patriot. But when the President heard by how narrow 
a margin she had escaped, he sent an order post haste for 
the Constitution to remain in port ''until further orders." 

The Constitution had made port in Boston, but brief 
was her stay there; for Capt. Isaac Hull foresaw that the 
story of his race with the British would make faint the heart 




3 









5tt 

o 



T3 









H 



IMPORTANT SEA BATTLES OF THE WAR OF 1812 45 

of the President. He felt well assured that orders keeping 
him in port were on the way. He understood very well 
that if the Constitution were thereafter kept in port, all 
hope of the navy having a part in the war for the honor of 
the flag was gone. To avoid such disgraceful inaction, 
though he knew he might be shot if he failed, Hull sailed 
from port on August 2. And on August 19, just before 
two o'clock in the afternoon, the British frigate Guerriere 
was seen a-lee. The decisive naval battle of the War of 
1812 — the battle that was to determine whether or not 
the navy was to have a part in the war — was at hand. 

Of the conflict that followed certain details claim es- 
pecial mention. While the Guerriere began to shoot before 
her shot could possibly reach, Hull held his fire, even though 
the crew showed plainly their impatience, until within pis- 
tol range of the enemy. Then crouching till he spht his 
knee breeches from waistband to buckle, he sprang erect 
and shouted: 

'^Now, boys, pour it into them!" 

The broadside was Uke a single explosion. The crash 
of the shot piercing the timbers of the Guerriere came back 
Hke an echo. The gunners of the Constitution had aimed to 
avenge the wrongs of the 20,000 American seamen that had 
been impressed on board British warships, and every shot 
struck home. So plainly to be seen was the havoc wrought 
by that first broadside that Hull said with exultation : 

"By , that vessel is ours." 

It was so. Fifteen minutes later the mizzen-mast of 
the Guerriere was shot away, and when the wreckage caught 
as a drag in the sea the Constitution forged ahead and 
raked her. The Guerriere had an Anglo-Saxon crew; they 
were full of pluck, of course, and Capt. James Richard 
Dacres, commanding, thought to board the Constitution, 
when at one time the two ships came together. But he 



46 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

changed his mind when he saw the resohition of the men 
that gathered to repel him. 

Then the Constitution's greater spread of canvas caused 
the ships to part, and a Httle later the remaining masts of 
the Guerriere fell over the rail, leaving her to roll the muz- 
zles of her guns under water, a helpless hulk in the trough 
of the sea. 

Out of a crew of 272 the Guerriere had lost 23 killed 
and 56 wounded. Thirty solid shot had pierced her at the 
water-Une. In less than half an hour she had been utterly 
beaten and practically destroyed. She was burned later. 
The Constitution lost 7 killed and 7 wounded of a crew of 
468, and when a few new braces and some other running 
gear had been rove off, she was as fit for battle as when the 
Guerriere was first seen. 

The results of this battle ought never to be forgotten. 
The enemy had sneered at the Constitution as a ''bunch of 
pineboards"; now they began to proclaim that she was "o, 
seventy-four in disguise." They came to believe that the 
powder-monkeys of the Constitution were ''the masters and 
mates of merchantmen." They measured the shot of the 
guns on the Constitution and found that the 24-pounders 
were a fraction of an inch greater in diameter than the 
18-pounders on the Guerriere. They even made the foolish 
assertion that the Constitution's guns had been aimed by 
deserters from the British navy. But after a century de- 
voted to the consideration of the battles of the War of 
1812, both British and Americans can now see that the 
most important fact of that battle, as of several others of 
that war, was that the Americans were able to look clear- 
eyed through the sights of their guns. Neither the num- 
ber nor the size of the cannon of the Constitution was of 
any particular moment in this battle. The fact that the 
Guerriere received thirty shots at or below the water-Une, 



IMPORTANT SEA BATTLES OF THE WAR OF 1812 47 

and more elsewhere in the hull, proves that if the crews 
had changed ships the Americans would have won. The 
British crew was made up of impressed, ill-fed, and ill- 
trained seamen. The Constitution was manned by men of 
intelligence, who knew what they were fighting for, and 
they had taken kindly to the drill at great guns. 

But the most important result of that battle was its 
effect upon the American people. The flames of the Con- 
stitutio7i's guns burned away the prejudices and false doc- 
trines that had been so carefully cultivated for more than 
ten years. Hull had been obliged to steal away to sea in 
"the awful stillness of a New-England Sabbath morning," 
because the Government was afraid to trust a naval crew 
beyond the protecting guns of forts. The idea of our naval 
ships being able to meet those of Great Britain had seemed 
too ludicrous for serious argument. The volunteers and 
the mihtia were to sweep the British flag from the conti- 
nent. But the victory of the Constitution changed all that. 
And the surrender of Detroit to an inferior force of British 
soldiers at this time helped to emphasize the lesson. The 
battle of the Constitution and the Guerriere was the decisive 
battle of the war, because through it the American sailor 
received permission to fight for his flag, and because the vic- 
tories won by our sailors saved the Nation from humiliating 
losses when peace was made. From the capture of the 
Macedonian in the sunlit seas south of Madeira to the crow- 
ing of the rooster in Macdonough's rigging under the ever- 
green slopes of the Adirondacks, every triumph of the 
''gridiron flag" was made possible by the victory of the Con- 
stitution. The Constitution saved the navy and the Nation. 

The capture of the British frigate Macedonian, Capt. 
John Surman Garden, by the frigate United States, under 
Capt. Stephen Decatur (October 25, 1812), is of interest 
here chiefly because it emphasized the work already done 



4S A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

by the Constitution — it cultivated the good opinion the peo- 
ple were forming of the navy, and added to the feeling of 
chagrin among the enemy. It was particularly effective 
in these respects because the crew of the Macedonian hsid 
been well trained, according to their standards, though as a 
matter of fact the Macedonian had 104 killed and wounded 
whereas the United States had but 12. The hull of the United 
States was struck but three times, while the Macedonian's 
hull was struck by 100 solid shot, and so badly cut to pieces 
that it took two weeks to fit her for the passage to Long 
Island Sound, where she arrived eventually. 

The story of the capture of the British frigate Java, 
Capt. Henry Lambert, by the Constitution under Capt. 
WilUam Bainbridge (December 29, 1812), was much like 
the preceding actions in the matter of results. The Java 
was shot to pieces and the Constitution was but Httle in- 
jured. The Constitution lost 34 killed and wounded, the 
Java 161. The Java had to be burned; the Constitution 
was ready for another fight an hour after the battle ended. 

In the meantime there had been a little battle between 
two sloops of war, the American Wasp and the British 
Frolic, on October 18, 1812. It is notable chiefly because 
the Frolic carried a heavier armament than the American 
ship (her gvms threw 292 pounds of metal to the Wasp's 
249). The two vessels met off the North Carolina coast 
at a time when a heavy sea was running. In fact the muz- 
zles of the guns of both ships were occasionally submerged 
by the rolling of the vessels. But the Wasp ranged up 
within sixty yards of the Frolic and then the battle began. 
It was a matter of gunnery exclusively until the two came 
together. Then the Americans boarded the Frolic. They 
found but few of the Englishmen able to stand. She had 
lost 15 killed and 47 seriously wounded out of 110, while 
the Americans had lost but 5 killed and 5 wounded out of 



IMPORTANT SEA BATTLES OF THE WAR OF 1812 49 

138. The fighting had lasted twenty minutes. The Amer- 
icans had fired their guns as their ship started to roll 
toward the enemy. The British had fired as their ship 
rolled away from the Wasp. So the American shot struck 
home in the hull of the Frolic, while the British shot flew 
high through the rigging of the Wasp. Unhappily, while 
the crew of the Wasp were repairing damages, a British 
ship of the line came into view and carried her and her 
prize to Bermuda. The Wasp was commanded by Master 
Commandant Jones; the Frolic by Capt. Thomas Whin- 
yates. This was the first naval action of the war where 
the force of the British was somewhat superior. 

Off Demerara, on February 24, 1813, the sloop of war 
Hornet, Master Commandant James Lawrence, fell in with 
the British sloop-of-war Peacock, Capt. William Peake, 
and in exactly eleven minutes shot her to pieces so that 
she sank in spite of the most strenuous efforts to save her. 
She carried down three American sailors who were trying 
to keep her afloat. It is noted, too, that the fire of the 
Americans was rapid as well as accurate — so rapid that they 
had to dip up water and drench the guns in order to cool 
them off. The Hornet was not damaged in her hull, and 
but two slight injuries to her spars were sustained. The 
Hornet had 1 killed and 4 wounded out of a crew of 142, 
while the Peacock lost 5 killed and 33 wounded out of 130. 

The stories of these battles, thus briefly told, show 
well the aggressive spirit of the American sailor after the 
prolonged ill usage to which he had been subjected by the 
warring Powers of Europe. They show, too, how the nat- 
ural aptitude and the training of the American had made 
Mm superior to the average man behind the gun in the 
British navy. But the stories of the losses of two of our 
ships, now to be told, should prove equally interesting; 
that they are still more instructive is beyond dispute. 



VI 

SHIPS THAT WERE LOST 

The first ship lost was the frigate Chesapeake. She had 
been on a cruise beginning in December, 1812, and had 
returned to Boston on April 9, 1813. The term of enlist- 
ment of her crew had expired, and on reaching port there 
was a dispute between the captain and the men over the 
prize money due on account of five merchantmen that 
had been captured. Moreover Boston was swarming with 
crimps eager to ship men in various privateers that were 
fitting out there and at Salem. Therefore nearly all her 
crew left the ship; and when Capt. James Lawrence, who 
had been promoted for his gallantry while in command of 
the Hornet, came to fit her for sea, he was in hard straits 
for men. In consequence of this he shipped forty rene- 
gade Englishmen and an unstated number of Portuguese, 
one of whom soon brought a large proportion of the crew 
to a state of mutiny, which Lawrence quelled by a distri- 
bution of prize-money checks. Many of the Americans 
were green hands, but the chief weakness of the crew lay 
in the presence of the renegades and foreigners who num- 
bered more than ten per cent of the whole crew. 

Nevertheless Captain Lawrence was eager to get away 
to sea. The British frigate Shannon, Capt. P. B. V. Broke, 
was beating to and fro off the harbor, and Broke had sent 
in a challenge asking for a ship duel in any locality that 
Lawrence might appoint. In his eagerness to accept this 
challenge, Lawrence left his anchorage at noon on Tuesday, 



SHIPS THAT WERE LOST 51 

June 1, 1813, and stood out to where the Shannon awaited 
him, although his final draught of men arrived just as he was 
leaving — the crew had never been drilled together so much 
as to cast loose and provide her guns, or even to make 
sail. A very large proportion of them had never been as- 
signed to stations. With a few weeks in which to train 
his men, Lawrence would have made that crew, including 
renegades, work like a machine. The crew of the Shannon 
had been trained especially at great guns and target 
practice until they were perfect, even by the American 
standard. 

Then when the Chesapeake had overhauled the waiting 
Shannon, and Lawrence had an opportunity to pass under 
the Shannon's stern and rake her, he deliberately refused 
this advantage and steered up alongside the enemy. How 
the fire of the Shannon proved superior; how Broke led 
boarders in person; how Lawrence was mortally wounded 
and was carried below saying, ''Don't give up the ship!" 
how the untrained and unled crew of the American ship 
was then subdued, need not be told. The result was in- 
evitable because of the lack of training of the American 
crew, and because Lawrence had refused to rake the enemy 
when he had the opportunity — that is to say, because of 
the chivalry of the American commander, which is a point 
to be considered further on. The chagrin which American 
writers have shown in connection with this battle is wholly 
needless. 

After the long series of defeats which the British had 
suffered, including that wherein the better-armed Frolic 
was beaten to pieces by the Wasp, the elation of the Brit- 
ish was natural. One is in no way surprised to find the 
story of this battle included in a popular English volume 
entitled "Deeds that Won the Empire." It did not win 
anything except the Chesapeake, but it was almost the only 



52 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

battle afloat during that war to which an EngUshman can 
refer without offering excuses. 

The other ship that was lost, the story of which must 
be told here, was the Essex. Under Capt. David Porter, 
and with Midshipman David Glasgow Farragut on board, 
she sailed from the Delaware in October, 1812. She was 
under orders to join the Constitution and the Hornet in a 
cruise to the East Indies. But the Constitution, having 
captured the Java, was obliged to return home; the Hor- 
net was driven from the Brazil coast by a line-of-battle 
ship, and the Essex was left without definite orders at a 
port in southern Brazil. In this condition of affairs Por- 
ter had the courage to sail to the Pacific on his own initi- 
ative. His work in destroying the British whaling fleet is 
a matter of small interest; the memorable matter is the 
battle in which the Essex was captured, together with the 
facts immediately preceding it. 

Having heard that the British frigate Phoebe, with two 
sloops-of-war, was coming to capture him, Porter would 
have been fully justified in saihng for home by a route that 
would have been entirely safe. Instead of this he chose 
to seek the enemy. On this errand the Essex reached Val- 
paraiso early in January, 1814. Early in the morning of 
the 8th, the British frigate Phoebe, Capt. James Hilly ar, 
and the sloop-of-war Cherub, Captain Tucker, appeared off 
the port. A merchant seaman went off in a small boat and 
informed them that the Essex was in disorder because a 
dance had been given to the citizens of the town the night 
before, and because one watch (a third) of the crew were 
on shore leave. 

On hearing this news Captain Hillyar reached into the 
harbor with the Cherub in company. Both of these crews 
were at quarters, and the Phoebe was steered alongside and 
within fifteen feet of the starboard rail of the Essex. Cap- 



SHIPS THAT WERE LOST 53 

tain Hillyar intended to attack the Essex because he be- 
lieved he had caught her unawares. In fact, his approach 
was an attack. But he found the Essex ready and wait- 
ing, and he made haste to retreat and anchor out of range. 

Says Captain Mahan (''Admiral Farragut," p. 37): 
*' Captain Hillyar afforded Porter full justification for 
opening fire." In resisting the attack which Hillyar had 
made Porter would not have been guilty of violating the 
neutrahty of the port, and it was therefore not alone his 
privilege, it was his duty to fight. But, although he had 
grapnels at the yard-arms ready to secure the Phoebe along- 
side, and some of his men were at the guns eager to fire, 
while others were on the rail with cutlass in hand equally 
eager to board the enemy under cover of the smoke of the 
first broadside; although he had the Phoehe within his 
power, he let her go; and all that has ever been said in ex- 
cuse of that act was that he ''was the very pink of chiv- 
alry." 

For a time the Phoehe and the Cherub blockaded the Essex 
in the port. Captain Hillyar refused to meet the Essex 
in a fair fight between the two frigates, a refusal which, if 
it did not show "chivalry," showed common sense. Then 
having learned that three other British frigates were com- 
ing in search of the Essex, Porter determined to leave port 
at the first opportunity. 

In a stiff wind on March 28, 1814, the Essex parted her 
cable, and seeing that at the moment he had space to work 
out to windward of the Phoebe, Porter determined to put 
to sea. In this effort he was succeeding weU when a puff 
carried away his maintopmast. At that he turned back 
toward the harbor. Farragut says that he should have 
squared away before the wind, fighting as he had to, until 
the damage was repaired, and then turned on the Phoebe. 
But Porter rehed on a promise that Hillyar had made 



54 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

while lying at anchor, to respect the neutraUty of ChiH, 
and ran in close to the Chihan beach. At that Hilly ar 
with flags flying from both his ships came down to the 
attack. 

The Essex at this time carried forty 32-pomider carron- 
ades and six long 12-pounders. The Phoebe carried twenty- 
six long 18-pounders, one long 12-pounder, and one long 
9-pounder, besides carronades. Being thus able to use fif- 
teen long guns where the Essex could use but six, even if 
her six were all brought to one side, and having, moreover, 
18-pounders, while the Essex had 12-pounders, Captain 
Hillyar determined to hold his ship at a range where the 
shot of his long guns would be entirely effective. This was 
also a display of common sense. 

Finding the Essex at anchor the Phoebe sailed in astern 
of her, and at 3.54 o'clock opened fire. The Cherub took 
a position off the starboard bow of the Essex and for a 
brief interval also maintained a fire; but as she had only 
two small long guns, and was not disposed to get within 
range of carronades, her part of the battle was inconsider- 
able. It was a battle between the Phoebe and the Essex 
at a range that enabled the Phoebe to use fifteen long guns 
where the Essex had but six that would reach, and of these 
only three could be brought to bear. The first Heutenant 
of the Phoebe protested to Captain Hillyar that shooting 
the Essex to pieces from such a position of safety was sheer 
murder; but the captain repUed that he was there to cap- 
ture the Essex, and he would not risk closing in. 

The defence was most desperate. Time and again Por- 
ter put springs on his cable to swing the Essex around so 
that he could use his six long guns against the enemy's fif- 
teen long ones, but on each occasion the ropes were shot 
away. Then seeing that the Phoebe had anchored, and 
was firing as if at target practice. Porter shpped his cable. 



SHIPS THAT WERE LOST 55 

He had but one sail left that he could control, for the gear 
of the rest had been cut by the shot. 

Many of his guns were dismounted. His decks were 
sUppery with blood in spite of sanding; a third of his crew 
had been shot down and disabled. The Phoebe at that 
moment had 289 fighting men on board, while the Essex 
had less than 150 able to handle a cutlass. But with his 
men — even those dying under the surgeon's knife — shout- 
ing '^ Don't give her up, Logan!" and ''Hurrah for Lib- 
erty!" Porter headed for the Phcebe, determined to lead 
his men to her decks. 

Hillyar had been trained in the school of Nelson — the 
school wherein it was taught that ''No captain can do 
wrong if he places his ship alongside an enemy." But 
when he saw the Essex coming with her rags flapping in 
the air, he slipped his cable, brailed in his spanker, and fled 
from the cripple. 

In the early days of the war the British sloop-of-war 
Alert was overhauled by the Essex, and when the crew of 
the Httle ship saw the American flag they cheered for joy 
at the thought of fighting an American frigate. When 
the Constitution was bearing down on the Guerrih'e, Cap- 
tain Dacres at first refused to beheve that the Constitution 
was an American ship, because, as he said, she came down 
too boldly for a ship manned by such people. But British 
opinion of American sea-fighters had changed somewhat 
in the months that had passed. The Essex was captured 
at last; but few stories of our history stir our pride as does 
that of this fight. And it is worth remembering that our 
first admiral served his country well in that battle. 

For the good of the service it is necessary to point out 
that Porter and Lawrence made each a most serious error. 
Inspired by "chivalry," Lawrence refused to rake the 
Shannon when he had opportunity, while Porter, animated 



56 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

by the same idea, allowed the Phoebe to escape from his 
grasp in the harbor of Valparaiso. Very likely the Shannon 
would have captured the Chesapeake even had Lawrence 
raked her, but it was a serious error to fail to take any 
advantage. In like manner the error of Porter cost him 
his ship, and many of his crew lost their lives and others 
endured untold suffering because of it. If any American 
naval officer is ever again guilty of such ''chivalry," a 
courtmartial should inflict on him the just penalty for 
neglect of duty in the presence of the enemy. But when 
we consider the effect of these two battles upon the coun- 
try, and its standing as a world Power, it appears that the 
''chivalry" was, perhaps, worth the price. For as already 
pointed out, the Nation had been dominated by the poUcy 
of "peaceable coercion" until the nations of Europe looked 
upon all Americans as contemptible cowards. We were 
fighting for "free trade and sailors' rights" (with "trade" 
placed before "rights") certainly; but we were also fighting 
to estabfish a character for the people. We had to dem- 
onstrate that we were not cowards whose sole motive in 
life was "interest." It appears that Lawrence lost his life 
in a determined effort to upbuild the character of his coun- 
try, while Porter's work at Valparaiso was of the most bril- 
Hant in the annals of our navy. 

There was one other feature of the battle of Valparaiso 
that needs special emphasis. When Porter wished to get 
alongside of the enemy he was unable to do so because 
his ship had not enough power to give her the needed 
speed. In modern days a naval officer is heard to say, 
here and there, that the popular demand for speed in 
American warships is a "craze," and that the quahty most 
needed in a fighting ship is the ability "to stay in the bat- 
tle fine." Porter had plenty of guns with which to "stay 
in the battle line" ; what troubled him was that he couldn't 



SHIPS THAT WERE LOST 57 

get into the battle line. If, in our next war, we are to in- 
vite the enemy to come to our harbors to do the fighting, 
and, when there, to chose his range and time of fighting, 
then speed is a matter of no consequence. But the men 
of the navy who can be trusted to force the fighting in 
time of battle are a unit in demanding ships that will have 
power to reach the fighting fine, and, when there, will have 
guns to demonstrate the truth of the words of Farragut: 
''The best protection against the enemy's fire is a well- 
directed fire from our own guns." 



VII 

SQUADRON BATTLES OF THE WAR OF 1812 

The battles of Lake Erie and Lake Champlain were among 
the most important of the war because victory in each case 
preserved the territory of the Nation from the invader. 
One cannot help recalHng, over and again, the fact that 
Congress and the people, while utterly distrusting the navy, 
had looked to see the volunteers and militia sweep the 
British from Canada, and yet immediately after the war 
began Gen. Wilham Hull (an uncle of Capt. Isaac Hull, 
who first made the Constitution famous) surrendered De- 
troit to an inferior force — a force, too, that had to cross 
the river, of course, to reach him. By this surrender the 
whole Northwest Territory, won by ''Mad" Anthony 
Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, passed into the 
control of the British. It was a most depressing loss, and 
unhappily the control of Lake Erie went with it. To re- 
gain control of the lake was to recover the lost territory 
because at that time supplies for the British forces at De- 
troit could not be transported to them overland in suf- 
ficient quantities. 

Accordingly Master Commandant Ohver Hazard Perry, 
who had been in command of a flotilla of useless gunboats 
at Newport, R. I., was ordered to report to Commodore 
Isaac Chauncey, commanding the Department of the Lakes, 
and take charge of such vessels as were building and al- 
ready afloat on Lake Erie. 

On March 27, 1813, Perry reached Presqu' Isle, now 



SQUADRON BATTLES OF THE WAR OF 1812 59 

the city of Erie, Pa. He found two brigs building, one of 
which was named the Lawrence, after the ill-fated captain 
of the Chesapeake, while the other was named Niagara. 
Two gunboats and a schooner were also in hand. In due 
time Perry was able to add a brig, three schooners, and a 
sloop to this force — vessels that had been blockaded by 
the British in Niagara River, and were released when Fort 
Erie was evacuated. For a time the new vessels at Erie 
were blockaded by a British fleet maintained on the lake, 
but a dinner party took this fleet to Port Dover, and on 
August 4th Perry got his flagship and hghter vessels out 
of port, with guns mounted, and found himself so much 
superior in force that the British were obliged to retreat 
to Maiden on the Detroit River, where a warship was on 
the stocks, which, when launched, was named the Detroit. 

After some saiUng about the lake and examination of 
the Detroit River, Perry and nine of his vessels went into 
Put-in-Bay, off Sandusky, on September 6th. The schooner 
Ohio had been sent to Erie for suppHes. At a council of 
officers held there it was decided to sail over to Maiden 
and attack the British there with small boats. The next 
morning the fleet sailed for this purpose, but as they were 
clearing the islands the British were seen under sail bound 
down the lake, the commander, Commodore Robert Her- 
iot Barclay, having felt obhged to make a run to Long 
Point before he was ready, because his force was so short 
of supplies as to be hungry. 

The British ships numbered six, measured 1,460 tons, 
and carried guns throwing 459 pounds of metal at a broad- 
side. The American squadron numbered nine vessels, 
measuring 1,671 tons, and carried guns that threw 936 
pounds of metal at a broadside. The British long guns 
were able to throw 195 pounds of metal at a broadside, 
while the American long guns threw 288 pounds. As each 



60 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

side had as many men as were needed to handle the guns 
and rigging, it is apparent that the Americans were of 
decidedly superior force. This superiority was modified 
somewhat, however, by the fact that the Detroit, the Brit- 
ish flagship, carried seventeen long guns, of which one was 
an 18-poimder and two were 24's, where the American flag- 
ship (the Lawrence) carried but two long 12-pounders. 
The Lawrence and the Niagara each carried eighteen 32- 
pound carronades, but the concentration of long guns on 
the British flagship was of great advantage while Perry's 
squadron was approaching, particularly as the wind was 
light. It should be stated, too, that the British commo- 
dore had fought under Nelson at Trafalgar, while Perry 
was a youth of twenty-seven years, who had to make up 
with aggressive enthusiasm what he lacked in experience. 

That Perry possessed enough of this latter quahty was 
manifested in an order given soon after the enemy had 
been sighted. For when his sailing master pointed out the 
fact that as the wind was then blowing, the British would 
have the weather gage, Perry replied : 

"To windward or leeward they shall fight to-day.'' 

A shift of the wind, however, enabled Perry to attack 
as he pleased and he chose to advance in column with two 
little schooners ahead of the Lawrence. The enemy in Hne 
in close order awaited the attack, and as soon as the Law- 
rence was within range, the long guns were concentrated 
upon her. 

It was by closing in thus, in spite of the enemy's long 
guns — ^by his "ready initiative" and "his instant accep- 
tance of necessary risk, in standing down exposed to a 
raking cannonade to which he for a long time could not 
reply," as Mahan says, that Perry showed his greatness as 
a squadron commander. The fighting that followed was 
most desperate, for Lieut. Jesse D. Elhott, commanding 



SQUADRON BATTLES OF THE WAR OF 1812 61 

the Niagara, deliberately lagged behind for an hour and by 
holding the vessels astern of him left the Lawrence with 
two small schooners to face the enemy. During that hour 
the crew of the Lawrence fought as few crews have ever 
done. For a time came when no one was left on deck to 
aim the guns but Perry and his first Heutenant, John J. 
Yarnall, while the men who loaded and handled the tackles 
had been shot down until Perry felt obhged to go to the hatch 
and call for the surgeon's aids to help with the guns. And 
when the gun thus manned had lost more men, and Perry 
was in such desperate need that he once more called down 
the hatch for help, his appeal was answered by wounded 
men who crawled up the ladder on their hands and knees, 
grasped the falls of the tackles, and in spite of wounds 
hauled out the gun that a last shot might be fired at the 
enemy. 

And they did not fight in vain. The Lawrence was shot 
to pieces, it is true; but before her guns ceased to fire she 
had reduced the flagship of the enemy to a condition where 
Captain Barclay described it as a ''perfect wreck," while 
the Queen Charlotte, the next in size among the British ships, 
was as badly injured. 

After an hour's lagging Elliott made sail because ''he 
reahzed that his commander-in-chief would be destroyed 
imder his eyes, unless he went to his support, and that he 
himself would rest under the imputation of an inefficient 
spectator" (Mahan). But as he sailed down he kept a 
long way out of carronade range, and seeing this. Perry 
abandoned the Lawrence, and rowed away to the Niagara. 
Once there he sent Elliott to hasten on the other vessels 
astern, while he himself sailed the Niagara into the midst 
of the battered British squadron and with his fresh crew 
and guns quickly compelled them to surrender. 

The spirit that found voice in the words in "To wind- 



62 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

ward or leeward they shall fight to-day," was precisely 
what was needed in that campaign, and every campaign. 
The British fleet having been captured, Detroit and Michi- 
gan territory ''fell back into the hands of the United States." 
The Indians deserted the British standard. The American 
army, under General Harrison, was transported to the 
Canadian shore and the British were utterly routed in the 
battle on the Thames River that followed. It was the 
navy that saved the Northwest Territory to the United 
States. 

Of equal interest and greater importance was the battle 
of Lake Champlain, for the Nation was in greater peril. 
Napoleon had fallen. On March 31 of that year (1814) 
Wellington had marched into Paris. The victories in Eu- 
rope had released the British armies there for service in 
America. The force that was concentrated in Lower Can- 
ada amounted to 18,000 men. A force of 11,000 men be- 
sides officers, and "sl proportionate and most excellent 
train of artillery," was sent to invade the country by way 
of Champlain, the old Northern Gateway. 

The character of the men in this army is worth recall- 
ing. Said Wellington, who had commanded but failed to 
restrain them in Europe: ''It is impossible to describe to 
you the irregularities and outrages committed by the 
troops. . . . There is not an outrage of any description 
that has not been committed on a people who have uni- 
formly received them as friends." And Napier in describ- 
ing the sacking of Badajos by these veterans says: "Shame- 
less rapacity, brutal intemperance, savage lust, cruelty and 
murder, shrieks and piteous lamentations, groans, shouts, 
imprecations, . . . resounded for two days and nights in 
the streets of Badajos." 

These veterans, who as Napier says, "shamed the most 
ferocious barbarians of antiquity," were come to subjugate 



SQUADRON BATTLES OF THE WAR OF 1812 63 

the American people who had been driven to war by long 
years of oppression — an oppression made possible by the 
might of a great navy that was unopposed. Washington 
had already been captured, and its prominent buildings, 
including the National Library, had been burned. The 
Chesapeake was open to the enemy. The territory of Maine 
as far as the Penobscot had been occupied by the British. 
Another great British army was on the way to New Or- 
leans. The two invasions were planned to hold so much 
of the territory of the United States as had been occupied 
in the East, and to add more in the north-east and the 
whole valley of the Mississippi in the West. Rarely has a 
battle been fought for so great a stake as that of Lake 
Champlain in the War of 1812. And yet as the British 
force, more than 11,000 strong, advanced toward Lake 
Champlain, the American Secretary of War ordered the 
general in command at Plattsburg to take the major part of 
the troops there to Sackett's Harbor for operations against 
Kingston, leaving 1,500 '' effectives" under Brigadier-Gen- 
eral Alexander Macomb to meet the British hosts that were 
advancing under Sir George Prevost. 

But in the meantime Master Commandant Thomas 
Macdonough, who, as told, had taken part in the destruc- 
tion of the Philadelphia in the harbor of Tripoli, had been 
sent to Lake Champlain to create a naval force for the 
defence of the Gateway. 

WTien ready for battle this force included the ship- 
rigged corvette Saratoga of 734 tons, the brig Eagle of 500 
tons (she was built in nineteen days), the schooner Ticon- 
deroga of 350 tons, and the sloop Preble of 80 tons. There 
were also ten gunboats that were of no great use in the 
battle, making a flotilla of 2,244 tons that carried 86 guns 
able to throw 1,194 pounds of shot at a broadside of which 
480 were from long guns and 714 from short. 



64 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

To meet this the British provided a frigate of more 
than 1,200 tons, named the Confiance, the brig Linnet of 
350 tons, the sloops Chubh and Finch of 112 and 110 tons 
respectively, besides 12 gunboats. In all there were 16 
vessels of 2,402 tons, throwing 1,192 pounds of shot at a 
broadside, of which 660 pounds were from long guns and 
532 from short. The advantage from the long guns was 
very greatly increased by the fact that the frigate carried 
30 long 24-pounders in the broadside and another on a 
pivot. She also carried six short guns that were either 
32-pounders or 42-pounders. The long gun broadside of 
the British frigate was but 96 pounds short of the entire 
long-gun broadside of the entire American fleet, and this 
lack was exactly made up by the long-gun broadside of 
the British brig Linnet, that carried 16 long 12-pounders 
eight in each broadside. This concentration of force is well 
understood in these modem days of battleships, and it was 
well enough understood by Capt. George Downie, a veteran 
of the British navy, commanding, to induce him to say that 
the Confiance was alone a match for the whole American 
squadron. And so she should have been, if properly 
handled. 

Thomas Macdonough, when the British came to Lake 
Champlain, was thirty years old. The daring of youth 
was still in his heart, but it was ''the intelUgent fore- 
thought Tvdth which he provided for the chances of battle" 
that made him great. In the gorge where Lake Cham- 
plain Hes the wind always comes from the north or the 
south. Macdonough saw that the British ships, being 
square-rigged, could not beat up from the Sorel River 
against a vnnd from the south; they would have to come 
with a fair wind. 

With this fact in mind Macdonough placed his fleet in 
line from Crab Island northward into Plattsburg Bay. 



SQUADRON BATTLES OF THE WAR OF 1812 65 

The ships were so far within the bay that without entering 
it the enemy could not reach them. 

Then he prepared for the exigencies of battle by caus- 
ing each ship to put springs on her cable so that she could 
be turned to and fro even if the \\ind failed, and on the 
Saratoga, at least, he arranged anchors at bow and stem, 
with kedges off both bow and stem in such fashion that in 
case of need he could turn her clear around, regardless of 
sails or wind, and present a fresh batter}^ to the enemy. 

On September G Sir George Prevost, \sith his Well- 
ington '^Imdncibles," came to the Saranac River. The 
American army there had been increased by volunteers 
and mihtia, but it still numbered onl}^ about one-third as 
man}^ as the British force; and it was at best but a scrub 
army against the veterans from Badajos. "Without the 
nsivy to support them they would have been swept away 
Uke the leaves of the mountains before an Adirondack gale. 
But with Macdonough's ships in the offing Sir George sat 
down and waited five days for Captain Downie and the 
British fleet. 

Sunday, September 11, 1814, was a most beautiful day 
in the most dehghtful season of the Adirondack year. 
The warm sun was tempered by a northerlj- breeze that 
made mere existence a pleasure, and the forest-clad moun- 
tains w^ere just beginning to show the colors of the autumn 
foUage. It was a day when the people of the region would 
naturally leave their homes to wander over the hills, and 
on this day without exception, save the sick and their 
nurses, every non-combatant in all that region did go out 
to the hilltops. 

Never in the histor\^ of the region — not even in the days 
of Indian and Tory raids — was there a day of more in- 
tense anxiety than this beautiful Sabbath morning, for 
the northerly breeze was sure to bring the British fleet. 



66 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

While the sailors on the ships thought most of defending 
the ''gridiron flag," the mihtia, crouching behind the forts 
and mthin the stone walls of the old mill on the banks of 
the river, knew they were to fight for their homes and their 
wives and daughters. ''They well knew that the men 
they were to face were very brave in battle, and very cruel 
in victory. They feared not for themselves; but in the 
hearts of the bravest and most careless there lurked a dull 
terror of what that day might bring upon those they loved." 

Off the point of Cumberland head lay a Yankee cutter, 
well manned, and with its bow pointed toward the Yankee 
flagship — a lookout waiting for the enemy. And as eight 
o'clock drew nigh, the people on the hills saw its seamen 
bend to their oars and drive it with signals flying into the 
bay. The enemy were coming. The long roll of the drums 
called to quarters on the anchored squadron, and then the 
white new sails of the British frigate appeared over the 
lower parts of Cumberland head. Below the point the 
enemy came to the wind, and then, after a time spent in 
examining the American hne, they stood in on the star- 
board tack — the British were able to choose whether or 
not they would close in on the Americans, and they chose 
to fight at as long range as possible, considering the depth 
of water, because of the number of long guns they carried. 
The Httle sloop Chuhb led the hne, followed by the brig Lin- 
net. The frigate Confiance was next while the sloop Finch 
and the flock of gunboats came last. 

As the enemy advanced, Macdonough, "who feared his 
foes not at all, and his God a great deal," knelt for a mo- 
ment with his officers on the quarter-deck. Thereafter the 
men of the American squadron awaited in perfect silence 
while the enemy came on cheering in anticipation of vic- 
tory, until a chance shot from the British brig Linnet came 
on board the Saratoga. A sailor on this ship "had obtained 



SQUADRON BATTLES OF THE WAR OF 1812 67 

by hook or by crook" a fighting cock of great repute in 
Piatt sburg, and this shot knocked to pieces the coop in 
which the bird was confined. But, undismayed, the 
rooster flew into the rigging, flapped its wdngs mth tre- 
mendous vigor and then crowed loud and long. At that 
the crew of the Saratoga whooped, laughed, shouted, and 
cheered. The rooster prepared them well for the fight. 

Nevertheless the battle was at one time wellnigh lost. 
The British frigate anchored at a range of at least three 
hundred yards, where the short guns of the Saratoga would 
barely reach her, and she then fired a double-shotted broad- 
side. Every one of those shot struck the hull of the Sara- 
toga. A hundred men were knocked down, and fort}^ of 
them were dead or wounded seriously. Then some of the 
long guns of the frigate were turned on the brig Eagle, on 
which the Chubb and Linnet were already firing. The Chubb 
was thrown out of it by one broadside from the Eagle, but 
the Eagle was in time driven from her anchorage to a shelter 
behind the Saratoga, leaving the Linnet free to take a place 
where she could rake the American flagship from stern for- 
ward. Under this cross and raking fire the guns of the 
Saratoga were disabled one after another until at last Mac- 
donough found that he had not even one gun left on the 
side toward the enemy. The Preble had been driven from 
the Une meantime, and the American gunboats had accom- 
pHshed nothing. The supreme moment of the battle had 
come. 

Leaving the disabled guns the crew of the Saratoga 
now manned the capstan and hove up the anchor. They 
then manned the lines to the kedges laid to wind her 
around, and in a brief interval had turned the fresh broad- 
side to the enemy. 

The captain of the Confiance had been shot down early 
in the battle, but she was handled by the executive officer 



68 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

with perfect skill and bravery. Seeing the Saratoga turned, 
he strove to wind his ship. But she was unprovided with 
the needed kedges and the wind had fallen so that the sails 
were of no effect. She turned far enough to point her stern 
toward the Saratoga, and there she remained immovable 
while the American gunners raked her at will. Flesh and 
blood could not stand that long, her flag was hauled down, 
and then the guns of the Saratoga were turned on the Lin- 
net until she, too, had to surrender. 

As the battle was growing, the wind, as said, died down 
entirely, and the smoke of the guns arose in the still air 
until every ship was fogged from the view of the non-com- 
batants who had flocked to the hills. Thereafter they 
gazed in silent awe, hearing the thunderous reports of the 
guns, but seeing only the faint glow of the flames through 
the growing cloud until the time came when the last shot 
was fired. The silence that followed was harder to bear 
even than the sounds of battle, for none could tell how the 
fight had gone. With bated breath they gazed while the 
smoke drifted from around the ships, revealing the tops 
of such spars as were yet standing. Then a wide-eyed 
patriot, standing on Cumberland head, saw that only the 
Stars and Stripes floated in the smoke-laden air, and with 
a shout that was heard all over the hill proclaimed the 
news of the Yankee triumph. A hundred throats about 
him took up the cry. It was echoed by a thousand voices 
from the hills across the bay and beyond the lake. The 
troops down in the valley of the Saranac took up the shout 
with such savage cries as were not to be misunderstood. 
They had withstood the onslaught that had been made 
upon them by WelUngton's ''Invincibles," and victory was 
now assured to them. Sir George Prevost, the commander 
of the British army, also heard, and ''with extreme morti- 
fication," too, the ''shout of victory from the American 



SQUADRON BATTLES OF THE WAR OF 1812 69 

works." To his mind the ''farther prosecution of the service 
was become impracticable," and when night came on, thick 
and dark with an Adirondack storm, the British army fled. 

The British gunboats escaped; the British ships were 
captured. The Americans lost 52 killed and wounded. 
The number of lost on the British side was concealed. The 
Americans found 270 killed and wounded on the captured 
ships. The British total loss was therefore certainly above 
300. As showing the relative skill of the gunners it was 
found that the Saratoga had 55 shot holes in her hull and 
the British frigate 105. As Roosevelt says: ''Macdonough 
in this battle won a higher fame than any other commander 
of the war. He had a decidedly superior force to contend 
with; and it was solely owing to his foresight and resource 
that we won the victory. His personal prowess had al- 
ready been shown at the cost of the rovers of Tripoli, and 
in this action he helped to fight the guns as ably as the 
best sailor. His skill, seamanship, quick eye, readiness of 
resource, and indomitable pluck are beyond all praise. 
Down to the time of the Civil War he is the greatest figure 
in our naval history," 

The battle of Lake Champlain was fought at an oppor- 
tune time. The American Administration had been eager 
to make peace, and commissioners had been sent to Europe 
for that purpose, and they had been instructed to ''omit 
any stipulation on the subject of impressment," if they 
thought it necessary to do so in order to obtain peace. 
The whole attitude of the Administration was one of sup- 
plication for peace. The British naturally reached out to 
claim the territory they already occupied in Maine as well 
as land that they expected to occupy. But when the story 
of the battle of Lake Champlain reached Europe, the Brit- 
ish contention was dropped. The Battle of Lake Cham- 
plain preserved the integrity of the national domain. 



70 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

Of the other battles of this war nothing need be said 
here because, while they were interesting as showing the 
ability of American sea-fighters (on occasion they showed 
also a degree of Yankee overconfidence), they had no par- 
ticular influence on the result of the war. 

But in connection with this war let it be said once more 
for the sake of emphasis that the theory of '' peaceable co- 
ercion" was not based upon Christian principle — Jefferson 
distinctly disavowed what he called the ''Quaker" theory 
— but it was based upon the supposition that men and 
nations were always more powerfully influenced by the 
profits of commerce than by ambition, national pride, love 
of home, race prejudice, or any other incentive. The love 
of money was to lead an aggressive nation 'Ho do us justice" 
regardless of other circumstances. That England could 
or would find more profit — especially for the all-powerful 
officers of her navy — in looting our commerce — was some- 
thing Congress did not foresee, and of which it refused to 
take cognizance when the fact was manifest. 

Holding this view Congress necessarily believed that in 
hastening the growth of the Nation's material wealth it 
was increasing its power for "peaceable coercion." The 
more commerce we had to withdraw the more anxious na- 
tions would be to do us justice. How the growth of our 
commerce was cultivating the jealous hatred of the rival 
ship merchants of England to a point where they were 
eager for aggressions that would wipe our ships from the 
sea, was not appreciated. 

Looking to the increase of national wealth as the sole 
element of national greatness the first ambition of Con- 
gress was to extinguish the national debt. To this end 
work on the six battleships already authorized was stopped. 
Every effort was made to decrease the navy instead. The 
world was notified that we would not fight. It was openly 




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SQUADRON BATTLES OF THE WAR OF 1812 71 

and often asserted that it was good policy to endure the 
outrages upon the flag so long as such endurance enabled us 
to save money for the reduction of the national debt, and 
the increase of private fortunes. 

By holding up the greed of money as the Nation's ideal 
of inspiration, the public debt was reduced from $83,038,- 
051 to $45,209,738. But a time came when the American 
people were held in hearty contempt by all other peoples 
of the earth, and 20,000 American seamen were serving as 
slaves on British warships. The degradation of the Na- 
tion could then go no further. The efforts to avoid war 
had brought on a condition where the people were abso- 
lutely compelled to fight. Then the debt of the Nation 
quickly arose to more than $127,000,000. Worse yet, un- 
counted other millions were destroyed by the ravages of 
invaders that our theory of ''coast defence'' invited to our 
shores. For even when we were at last ''kicked" into 
fighting, we could not wage war upon the enemy's coasts 
because we had no adequate navy. Long years were to 
elapse before any one would teach us that the only rational 
system of defence is an aggressive war. 

But if it was a needless war it proved to be worth its 
cost in the end. Since the guns of the Constitution splin- 
tered the wooden walls of the Guerriere no American has ever 
flinched at the sight of a foreign warship — no Congressman 
has ever dared insult his people by asserting that "the 
idea of our meeting Great Britain on the ocean is too ludi- 
crous to be repelled by serious argument." Moreover it 
was necessary that the theory of "peaceable coercion" 
should have full trial, that its absurdity and the detestable 
ideal upon which it was based might be fully exposed. We 
lost much, but we obtained peace with honor, and we did 
it in such fashion upon the sea as to compel all nations to 
respect the "gridiron flag," even through a civil war. 



VIII 



DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS AND GUNS IN THE 

OLD NAVY 

After the War of 1812 the navy saw httle real fighting 
until the Civil War. There was an expedition to the Medi- 
terranean on account of trouble with Algiers, but the pres- 
ence of the American fleet inclined the barbarian to peace 
after two of his warships had been captured. Then while 
the Spanish-Americans were fighting for freedom from 
Spanish rule the waters of the West Indies became in- 
fested with pirates. Fifteen small vessels, including one 
steamer called the Sea Gull, were added to the navy for 
use in hunting these pirates. It was most thankless work. 
Moreover a fourth of all the men who were on the station 
at one time died of the yellow fever. It was not until 
1826, when the independence of the Spanish-Americans 
had been fully attained, that the trouble ended. As for 
the War with Mexico, the navy lost its only opportunity 
for real distinction when the commanding officer in the 
Gulf failed to attack and capture the castle at Vera Cruz. 
The most interesting feature of our naval history in the 
period between 1815 and 1861 is the story of the develop- 
ment of the ships and guns. 

The naval battles of the War of 1812 were fought be- 
tween ships of the sail, but a battle between a steamer and 
a fleet of blockaders was missed by only a narrow margin 
of time. The fact that the British with their preponder- 
ance of sea forces were able to blockade the Atlantic coast 



DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS AND GUNS IN THE OLD NAVY 73 

of the United States at will, and the further fact that New 
York suffered continually, led to the building of the first 
steam warship in any navy. Late in 1813 Robert Fulton, 
who had as early as 1807 demonstrated the commercial 
success of steam navigation in the merchant marine, pro- 
posed to build a steam warship, and Congress, on March 
9, 1814, authorized the construction of ''one or more 
floating batteries," fit to ''destroy any of the ships of the 
enemy that may approach the shores or enter the waters 
of the United States." 

Considering the state of the mechanical arts a very 
good battleship was built, for she had timber walls so 
thick that no gun could penetrate them; a single paddle 
wheel concealed within the hull that drove her at five and 
one-half knots an hour, and she had a battery that was fit 
for a fight with a squadron. Fulton named her the Dem- 
ologos, but she is known to the navy list as Fulton the First. 

Unhappily for the development of naval power this 
steamer was not completed in time to take any part in the 
war; and after having been kept as a receiving ship at the 
BrookljTi navy yard until July 4, 1829, she was destroyed 
by the explosion of her magazine. 

That no other steamers were built for the navy in the 
years immediately following the War of 1812 is explained 
in part by the conservatism of the naval men, and in part 
by the confidence in the ships of the sail which the battles 
of that war had created among the people of the Nation. 
The men of the navy loved their ships — particularly those 
that, like the Constitution, had done good service — with an 
affection that no landsman can comprehend. They asked 
for no higher opportunity for glory than to command one 
of them in a battle with an enemy. Accordingly battle- 
ships of eighty guns or more, and a few frigates were 
launched at intervals — three battleships were sent afloat 



74 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

in 1820, for instance, and as late as 1848 the old Vermont 
was added to the navy. 

The use that was made of the Httle 100-ton steamer 
Sea Gull by Commodore Porter in the pirate war did not 
change the prevailing opinion in the matter of steamers, 
though Porter was one of the unusually progressive men 
who saw the advantages that steam would give to a fight- 
ing ship, and it was he that coramanded the Fulton the 
First in her trial trips. 

However, in 1835, Secretary of the Navy Mahlon Dick- 
erson observed that an act of Congress in the year 1816, 
long forgotten by most men, authorized the construction 
of a steam warship, and he wrote to the Board of Naval 
Commissioners requesting them to begin work on such a 
vessel immediately. On May 18, 1837, the hull for this 
steamer was launched at the Brooklyn navy yard. Then 
engines were installed that developed 625 horse-power and 
drove her at a sustained speed of twelve knots an hour. 
When tested in a race with the British transatlantic steamer 
Great Western, the new warship won. This, properly speak- 
ing, was the first ship of the steam navy of the United 
States. That is to say, because of the success attained in 
her the naval list has contained steamers ever since. More- 
over new classes of men were added to the personnel of 
the navy — the engineers and firemen. Capt. Matthew C. 
Perry, a brother of the hero of Lake Erie, superintended 
the building of this ship, and he also hired, and arranged 
for the standing, of the engine-room force among the other 
officers and men of her crew. Mr. Charles H. Haswell, of 
New York, was her chief engineer, and the first engineer 
of our steam navy. 

Then Congress, by the act of March 3, 1839, authorized 
''the construction of three steam vessels-of-war, on models 
that shall be most approved." The side-wheel steamers 



DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS AND GUNS IN THE OLD NAVY 75 

Mississippi and Missouri, sister ships, each displacing 
3,220 tons, were constructed under this act. They were 
completed in 1842. The Missouri was destroyed by an 
accidental fire at Gibraltar on August 26, 1843. The 
Mississippi had a long and brilliant career. She was the 
flagship of the naval forces in the Gulf of Mexico during 
the war with Mexico, and she was Capt. M. C. Perry's flag- 
ship when he was negotiating his famous treaty with Japan. 
But like the Missouri she was at last destroyed by fire, 
though it was in battle — when with Farragut she was trying 
to pass the Confederate batteries at Port Hudson, on the 
Mississippi River. 

In the meantime the screw propeller had begun to 
work as great a revolution in warships as steam was work- 
ing in the old methods of driving such vessels. John 
Ericsson had tried a screw-driven steamer on the Thames 
River, England, but the Lords of Admiralty who saw it 
were convinced that even if a large ship could be driven by 
such a contrivance, the rudder would not steer her. Then 
Ericsson came to America, under the influence of Capt. 
Robert F. Stockton, of the navy, and here the steam sloop- 
of-war Princeton, with a screw propeller instead of paddle 
wheels, and with her engines entirely below the water-hne, 
was built after his plans. This was the first screw warship 
ever built, as the Fulton the First was the first steam warship. 

But while our navy thus led the way in the evolution 
of the modem ship nothing was done toward the evolution 
of a navy, properly speaking. The development of a per- 
sonnel for the coming steam navy — a matter of more im- 
portance than the building of ships — was apparently un- 
thought of. The Mexican war had no influence on the 
development of steam warships; for Mexico had no navy, 
and sailing ships with such few steamers as we had, and 
were able to improvise, served well enough. 



76 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

To Congress and the people the navy seemed to be of 
ample strength, and it was therefore neglected. But in 
the meantime the British Government was unceasingly 
reaching out for more possessions on the American conti- 
nent. The Mosquito Territory in Nicaragua was claimed 
as a part of British Honduras. The weakness of our navy 
made any assertion of the Monroe Doctrine absurd in Eu- 
ropean eyes. The discovery of gold in California, and the 
consequent enormous increase of trade and travel across 
the narrow parts of the continent, developed a rivalry of 
interests in Central America to a degree that threatened 
war. San Juan del Norte, Nicaragua (called Greytown by 
the British), on the San Juan River, was occupied by Brit- 
ish forces. Tigre Island, in the Gulf of Fonseca, Honduras, 
a point that commanded the Pacific end of a proposed 
canal, was seized on the pretence that Honduras had re- 
fused to pay a debt. British warships were always found 
where needed to enforce British pretensions. The need of 
an American navy, able not only for harbor defence but 
for the protection of American interests, at least as far 
away as the coasts of Nicaragua, was apparent. 

In consequence of this need Congress, by the act of 
April 6, 1854, provided for the construction, ''at as early 
a day as practical," of ''six first-class steam frigates, to be 
provided with screw propellers, and armed and equipped 
for service." There was an ominous sound in the last 
sentence quoted, for "service" meant "war." Later five 
steam sloops were ordered in much the same terms, and 
then, as the trouble was not settled, seven more steam 
sloops were provided for, "which ships shall combine the 
heaviest armament and greatest speed compatible with 
their character and tonnage." 

The discussions in Congress, particularly that in the 
Senate on March 3, 1856, show that these warships were 



DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS AND GUNS IN THE OLD NAVY 77 

ordered because war was impending, and that war im- 
pended because we did not have an adequate navy. 

The ships were built ''at as early a day as practical"; 
they were armed with the best guns in the world, and (when 
ready) they were the ablest fighting ships in the world. 
Because of the building of these most efficient ships the 
war was avoided. 

Before describing these new frigates and sloops the 
story of the navy gun nmst be told. 

We fought the War of 1812 with ships that carried for 
their most effective guns a smooth-bore cannon with a bore 
between five and six inches in diameter, throwing a spher- 
ical cast-iron ball that weighed twenty-four pounds. The 
use of a 24-pounder on a frigate was a distinct advance in 
efficiency on the practice of the day. After the war we 
substituted 32-pounders — guns with a bore six inches, or 
a trifle more, in diameter — for the 24-pounders, and even 
our smallest sloops-of-war carried guns of this cahbre. 
Ships-of-the-line were armed with 42-pounders, but these 
were not strikingly more efficient than the 32-pounders. 

In 1837 the French adopted a gun that threw a sheU 
22 centimetres (8.7 inches) in diameter in place of solid 
shot. Mortars throwing shells had been in use for many 
years, but these guns threw shells horizontally. The use 
of shell guns then spread to the British navy, and an 8- 
inch gun that weighed from 53 hundred-weight to 65 hun- 
dred-weight became very popular, while a 10-inch gun of 
82 hundred-weight was introduced later. Following this 
lead an 8-inch gun was introduced into the American navy 
in 1841, but the 32-pounder remained the chief rehance of 
the service even when, some time later, a 10-inch gun, on 
the British pattern, was made. But happily for the peace 
of the country, the first real improvement in guns was 
made during the years when the need of superior weapons 



78 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

for the preservation of peace became indisputably ap- 
parent. 

Beginning in 1841 Col. George Bomford sought to de- 
termine the rending power of the powder in a cannon by 
boring holes through the metal at intervals from muzzle 
to breech and placing pistol balls in these holes as made. 
The force with which each pistol ball was expelled, when 
the cannon was fired, was measured by half-inch boards 
secured within range of the ball. Having learned by this 
method and an improvement on it the force of the powder 
gases at many points in the bore, it was assumed that the 
thickness of the gun metal at that point should be in pro- 
portion to this power. But no guns were designed on that 
theory until 1850, when Lieut. John A. Dahlgren sub- 
mitted plans (January 9th) for one that was immediately 
cast. It had a calibre of nine inches. An 11-inch gun 
was ordered on April 30, 1851. 

The 9-inch gun, made on this symmetrical model, used 
a soHd shot weighing 90 pounds or a shell weighing 74 
pounds, with a powder charge of 13 pounds. The initial 
velocity of the shell was 1,320 feet per second and the 
muzzle energy was 847 foot-tons. The gun weighed 9,000 
pounds. To this the carriage added 1,300 pounds, and it 
was supposed by the conservative naval men of the world 
that 10,300 pounds was too great a weight for a gun's crew 
to handle. But it was found when the gims had been in 
use for a time that even the 11-inch gun that weighed 16,000 
pounds and fired a shot weighing 166 pounds, and a shell 
of 136, was not too much for the strength of our naval men. 

A type of the frigates that were built during the days 
of impending trouble with England was the Merrimac. 
When completed (1856) she was sent over to England, and 
was examined by the naval oflScers at Southampton. 
They found her (as described by Sir Howard Douglas) a 



DEVELOPMENT OF SHIPS AND GUNS IN THE OLD NAVY 79 

ship of 3,197 tons, ''pierced for sixty guns," though carry- 
ing but forty. The forty included two 10-inch pivot guns, 
sixteen 8-inch shell guns of the old American pattern, and 
twenty-four 9-inch Dahlgrens. The Merrimac was at that 
moment the most formidable ship in Europe. The next 
year the Niagara, sl much larger ship, appeared in the 
Thames, where ''the beautiful lines of her dark hull showed 
to great vantage." She was fitted for a battery of twelve 
11-inch Dahlgrens, and the British supposed these guns to 
have an effective range of 7,000 yards. 

The type of the sloops built was the Hartford, sl ship of 
1,990 tons, carrying twenty-two 9-inch Dahlgrens in her 
broadside batteries. 

In all four 40-gun frigates that looked as if pierced for 
sixty guns, and fourteen smaller ships that were also armed 
with the Dahlgren guns, were constructed between 1854 
and 1858. It was in the days when steam was considered 
an auxiliary power — they had full sail areas and could 
make from eight to twelve knots an hour only under steam. 
But for the purposes of war, either acting singly or in 
squadrons, they were the most efficient ships in the world. 
So we had peace. 



IX 

THE NAVAL WORK OF THE CIVIL WAR 

The features of the naval work of the Civil War which 
ought to receive some notice in this work, are the blockade 
of the Confederate ports; the occupation of Hatteras Isl- 
and and Port Royal; the capture of New Orleans; the bat- 
tle of the Monitor and the Merrimac; the closing of the 
Mississippi River; the cruises of the Confederate com- 
merce destroyers; and the battle of Mobile Bay. 

It is a most memorable fact that while the Confederate 
authorities were, with splendid energy, reaching out for 
Pensacola, the forts on Charleston harbor and other Na- 
tional property within the borders of the seceding States, 
the National forces, and particularly the naval forces were 
under orders to ''act strictly on the defensive." It was 
even feared that officers might ''act on the defensive" with 
too much energy. Pensacola and its fine navy yard were 
surrendered to the Confederate troops (January 12, 1861), 
without resistance, lest a fight there should "precipitate 
a conflict," and bring on "all the horrors of war." Even 
Lincoln and his Cabinet were for a time uncertain what to 
do because of the feeling everywhere prevailing that when 
Americans were compelled to fight they ought always to 
act " on the defensive." The hardest lesson that the Amer- 
ican people have to learn is that the best way of "acting 
on the defensive" is to make the most vigorous attack 
possible on the strongholds of the enemy. For if we fight 
like a terrapin the "horrors of war" are brought to our 



THE NAVAL WORK OF THE CIVIL WAR 81 

own country; but if we fight like the eagle we carry the 
horrors of war to the territory of the enemy. 

The first aggressive naval act of the Civil War was laid 
out when on April 19 and 27, 1861, proclamations were is- 
sued blockading the Confederate ports. In August an ex- 
pedition under Flag Officer Stringham was sent south and 
on the 28th Fort Hatteras, on Hatteras Inlet, was cap- 
tured. This was the first National naval victory of the 
war. In November Port Royal was occupied. The shoal 
waters of the coast from the Chesapeake to Savannah were 
thus brought more or less under the control of the Na- 
tional forces, and a base for the relief of the blockading 
squadron was obtained. 

The Confederate coast had, all told, 185 harbor and 
river openings. In fine weather goods could be landed 
from shoal-draught ships at almost any point on the entire 
coast, and many cargoes were landed, during the war 
where no harbor existed. The continental line from Alex- 
andria, Va., to Mattamoras, Mexico, was 3,549 miles long. 
The shore line, including bays and sounds, was 6,789 miles 
long, and the entire beach Hne, including islands, was 11,- 
953 miles long. 

To guard this extent of beach line the National Govern- 
ment had just three ships when the blockading proclama- 
tion was issued. There were in commission twenty-six 
steamers and sixteen saiHng ships, but all save the three 
were scattered where they could not be made immediately 
available; and no one at that time knew how many would 
be needed. In all 600 vessels, nearly all of which were 
steamers, were finally in use, and the crews of our mer- 
chant ships and fishing smacks supplied an able host for 
manning them. The merchant fleets of Europe that had 
been running to Southern ports and European manufac- 
turers that had obtained their cotton, tobacco, and naval 



82 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

stores from the Southern States, were suddenly thrown 
out of employment by this blockade. 

The price of a bale of cotton rose to a point where, if it 
were smuggled through the lines, it could be sold at a profit 
of $250 above all expenses. The arms, medicines, and 
food that the Confederates soon needed paid equally large 
profits to successful blockade runners. 

The blockade runners were nearly all English. At first 
goods for the Confederates were shipped to the Bermudas, 
the Bahamas, or to Havana, in order to make them safe 
that far on their journey, but the courts held that the ul- 
timate destination of cargoes determined their character, 
and then the goods were nominally sold to merchants in 
the ports mentioned. Men on barren coral reefs began 
importing shiploads of mihtary supplies, if one could be- 
lieve the papers on ships trading to these reefs. Of course 
the papers were a mere blind ; every blockade runner found 
perjury easy. But it must be remembered that the pilots 
of the blockade runners were usually Confederate citizens, 
and believed they were engaged in a righteous war. The 
foreigners were an infamous gang ready to sacrifice honor 
and risk lives for gain, while the pilots were running risks 
for principle. 

Swift vessels were in demand from the first. Steamers 
of the lightest frames and most powerful engines were 
built for the trade. These were loaded to the last gasp 
and then sent toward the Confederate port. Eveiy sail 
and every smoke seen were avoided when possible and the 
runner was so handled that she arrived off her destined 
port at night. The lone light always displayed on the 
flagship of the blockading squadron was as good as a light- 
house to the enterprising skipper and the runner was driven 
through the Hne or around its end as seemed most conven- 
ient. 



THE NAVAL WORK OF THE CIVIL WAR 83 

The captain of a blockade runner commonly received 
$5,000 for a round trip, the mate and the engineer $1,000 
each, while the deck hand got $40. The Banshee, a noted 
runner, received $250 per ton freight in her first voyage. 

A record of 425 runs from Nassau showed sixty-two 
failures only. Between March 1, 1864, and January 1, 
1865, the Confederate authorities shipped out cotton that 
sold for $5,296,000, and imported 1,507,000 pounds of lead, 
1,933,000 pounds of saltpetre, and 8,632,000 pounds of 
meat — a most significant item, that, for it shows that the 
Confederacy was starving to death. While some few 
blockade runners were able to ply with almost packet-like 
regularity, they were vessels of small capacity, and with all 
their success they were able to supply but a small fraction 
of the needs of the beleaguered people. The stories told 
by blockade runners prove the efficiency of the blockade. 
Moreover more than a thousand runners were captured. 

Of the blockade as seen from the National ships it may 
be said, that to He, month after month, doing nothing but 
keep a bright lookout was trying to the soul. Food spoiled. 
The water was never fresh. The heat of the stoke hole 
varied from 110° to 150°. Many vessels were built by con- 
tractors who were thieves at heart, and were constantly 
out of repair. The opportunities to incur disgrace through 
the escape of a runner were abundant ; the opportunities to 
win renown were almost wholly lacking. It is impossible 
to do justice to the men who served faithfully on the 
blockade. 

The action of the war that was most important was the 
capture of New Orleans, because the success there attained 
saved the Nation from foreign intervention. The expe- 
dition was suggested to the Navy Department by Lieuten- 
ant David D. Porter, late in 1861. Capt. David Glasgow 
Farragut was assigned to the command, and on February 



84 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

20, 1862, he arrived at Ship Island, the rendezvous of the 
West Gulf Blockading Squadron, in the sloop Hartford, 
which had been given him for a flagship. A fleet that in- 
cluded five steamers approximately equal to the Hartford 
(which now carried twenty-four guns), three that carried 
from seven to ten guns and nine gunboats of two guns 
each assembled in the lower reaches of the river, together 
with a flotilla of twenty schooners that carried a big 
mortar each and four gunboats to guard and handle 
them. 

Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip guarded the river, and 
109 guns were found in the two. Moreover a raft or boom 
had been built across the river at Fort Jackson to hold any 
ships tiying to run up the river. A British warship that 
was in the river steamed up for a look at the raft, and af- 
ter it had returned to the National fleet its officers persist- 
ently volunteered their opinion that no fleet in the world 
could pass the forts. 

It was then that the greatness of Farragut as a naval 
commander first became conspicuous. His orders said 
distinctly: ''You will proceed up the Mississippi and re- 
duce the defences which guard the approaches to New 
Orleans." In obedience to this part of his orders he placed 
the mortar fleet in position, and for three days the mortars 
spouted useless shells at the forts. Then Farragut called 
a council of his officers, not to ask them if it were expedi- 
ent to try to pass the forts, but to learn if they could sug- 
gest any improvements on his plans for doing so. More 
than half the captains believed passing the forts impossi- 
ble, but Farragut had the firmness to persist. The little 
gunboat Itaska, Lieut. C. H. B. Caldwell commanding, 
broke the boom, and then, early in the morning of April 
24, 1862, the fleet steamed up and passed the forts easily. 
The converted merchantman Varuna was sunk by the 



THE NAVAL WORK OF THE CIVIL WAR 85 

Confederate converted merchantman Moore, Capt. Beverly 
Kennon (a most capable officer), but the National losses 
were unimportant, while all the Confederate defences, 
afloat or ashore, were rendered worthless. For, as Far- 
ragut had foreseen, the position of the forts and of an iron- 
clad floating battery that was moored at Fort St. Philip, 
was rendered untenable after the fleet passed up, because 
the Mississippi was the only route by which the Confeder- 
ates could send down supplies. 

A word concerning the defences of the river is worth 
while. There were 109 guns in the forts, but of these fifty- 
six were old 24-pounders. Because the fighting men of the 
region had been eager for battle, they had nearly all gone 
to the fighting line at the north side of the Confederacy, 
leaving the forts to be garrisoned to a large extent by for- 
eigners. The junior officers of the forts were young and 
inexperienced. But the worst feature of the defences was 
found afloat. A floating dry-dock had been converted 
into an ironclad floating battery, but its engines were 
worthless simply because there was a lack of good mechan- 
ics in the South. A huge ironclad scow, called the Missis- 
sippi, was in hand. It was designed and built by planters. 
Some of the ablest officers of the old navy had joined the 
Confederate forces, but the Confederate Government had 
placed them in the army; or had sent them cruising after 
American merchantmen, the destruction of which could 
have no influence on the result of the war; or at best had 
put them at work on makeshift ships in the swamps, here 
and there, with second-hand machinery and other materials 
of hke character to work with. If the two ironclads at New 
Orleans had been built by the naval officers whose ener- 
gies were wasted, and with materials that might have been 
concentrated there, Farragut would have failed. A^Tiat 
that failure would have meant to the Confederacy may be 



86 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

learned by a consideration of the results of Farragut's 
victory. 

For Napoleon III of France had been urgent in his 
efforts to induce England to unite with him and end the 
war. On April 18, the day that Farragut's mortars be- 
gan bombarding Fort Jackson, Napoleon had a conference 
with a member of the British Parliament, with a view to 
arranging for intervention. The Emperor knew, however, 
that the National fleet was in the Mississippi, and he 
thought it better to postpone urgent action until he had 
learned the result of the expedition. And when he heard 
of Farragut's success the matter of intervention was post- 
poned still further, and then abandoned altogether. By 
ignoring a part of his orders — that is to say, by obeying the 
ultimate intention of his orders and ignoring one of the 
details therein, Farragut won a decisive victory. 

After the flag once more floated over New Orleans, Far- 
ragut was sent up the Mississippi with his huge sea-going 
ships to blockade the river. At Washington it was sup- 
posed that the navy could thus complete an anaconda-like 
coil around the Confederacy and strangle it. But as no 
force was sent along with which to hold the towns occupied, 
the expedition was like a stroke in the fog. And at Vicks- 
burg the Confederate batteries were on bluffs 200 feet 
high — far above the guns of any naval ship. It was only 
when the army and navy could unite their efforts, as was 
done in 1863, that the great work of controlHng such a 
navigable water-course could be accomplished. 

The occupation of such points as Hatteras Inlet, Port 
Royal, and New Orleans was in a way an extension of the 
blockade. A port occupied was a port effectually closed. 
It was also a part of the territory of the Nation restored to 
the control of the flag, and a very large part of the navy's 
work was made up of this extension of the blockade. Nat- 



THE NAVAL WORK OF THE CIVIL WAR 87 

urally the energies of the Confederate naval authorities 
were constantly employed in efforts to lift the blockade, 
and the most notable of these efforts proved to be in its 
ultimate results, the most important ship duel known to 
naval history. 

On April 21, 1861, the Norfolk Navy Yard, through the 
weakness and lack of decision of the Federal authorities, 
fell into the Confederate hands. The Confederates thus 
obtained 2,000 cannon, a fine dry-dock, and the forty-gun 
frigate Merrimac, the sight of which in an EngHsh port at 
an opportune moment had helped to preserve peace. The 
upper part of the hull had been burned off, and she had 
sunk at her moorings; but the machinery was not much 
injured nor was the hull strained. As the pressure of the 
blockade was felt, and the Confederate looked around for 
relief, they thought of the hulk of the Merrimac at Nor- 
folk. But it was as an ironclad floating battery, not as a 
steam frigate, they restored her to service. Iron armor 
had already been used in Europe. The French had a frig- 
ate with iron armor called the Gloire; the British had a 
Warrior. Both of those ships carried sails, as well as steam, 
and were of the old frigate model. But when the Confed- 
erates had placed the Merrimac in dock they decked her 
over and then built on the deck a casemate with timber 
walls two feet thick, over which they placed two layers of 
two-inch iron plates. She was also provided with a ram. 
She was armed with six 9-inch Dahlgrens and four rifles, 
two of which were of 7-inch calibre and two of 6-inch. 
Work on her was begun in Jime, 1861. In March, 1862, 
she was ready for battle, and S. R. Mallory, Confederate 
Secretary of the Navy, planned ''a dashing cruise on the 
Potomac as far as Washington." On March 8 the Mer- 
rimac steamed out of Norfolk for her trial trip. As she 
opened the broad waters of Hampton Roads the National 



88 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

frigate Congress was seen over at Newport News, with the 
sloop-of-war Cumberland not far away. Nearer Fortress 
Monroe were the steam frigates St. Lawrence, Roanoke, and 
Minnesota. The Merrimac (she had been renamed the 
Virginia and ought to be called so) crossed over to the 
Newport News end of the Union line of ships, intending to 
begin there and destroy the entire squadron. Ignoring 
the harmless fire of the ships as she came within range, save 
only as she fired a few shot in return, the Merrimac rammed 
the Cumberland. The wound was mortal. But when the 
Merrimac demanded that she surrender, Lieut. George U. 
Morris, the senior officer present, having within him a 
spirit like that of John Paul Jones, rephed, ''Never! I'll 
sink alongside!" And the Cumberland went down with 
her flag flying, while her crew worked their guns until the 
rising water wet their feet. 

The Congress was then run ashore where the Merrimac 
could not follow, but she was set on fire by hot shot and 
burned. Having accomplished this much, the Merrimac 
was obHged to return toward Norfolk and leave the other 
Federal ships for another day; for the ebb of the tide left 
the water too shoal for an attack on them. But as she 
steamed away it seemed to those who had seen her work, 
and to those, too, who had heard of it, that she carried 
within her iron-clad walls the fate of the Nation. 

But as night came on and the flames of the Congress il- 
luminated the waters of Hampton Roads, a new defender 
of the flag appeared. In August, 1861, Congress had au- 
thorized a commission of naval officers to consider any 
plans of iron-clad vessels that might be submitted to them. 
Among those submitted was one by John Ericsson, of New 
York, who had brought the screw propeller into use on 
warships. No sailor could have invented the Monitor. 
Ericsson began by designing a hull with rounded ends. It 



I 




0< 






bJD 



C 
C 
O 



THE NAVAL WORK OF THE CIVIL WAR 89 

was 124 feet long 34 wide and 6 deep. On top of this he 
laid a great box, wedge-shaped at each end, and 172 feet 
long 41 wide and 5 deep. A single row of rivets united 
the two. This superstructure projected 3 feet 8 inches 
beyond the sides of the lower hull and 24 feet beyond each 
end. The combination was Hke a raft on a canoe. A re- 
volving turret 9 feet high and 20 feet in diameter, inside 
measurements, was placed on the centre of the deck, and 
it revolved on a spindle turned bj^ steam-engines. Two 
11-inch Dahlgrens were mounted, side by side, in the tur- 
ret and fired through ports cut in the wall, which was 
composed of eight 1-inch iron plates. The commission ex- 
pressed the opinion that she did not have the properties 
which "si sea-going vessel should possess," and that opin- 
ion has been fully sustained, but she was devised on a plan 
that would ''render the battery shot and shell proof," and 
a contract was made for a trial vessel. It should be said 
that the revolving armored turret had been invented by 
Theodore R. Timby, in 1841, but it was Ericsson who first 
made a practical application of the device. When com- 
pleted the Monitor was placed under the command of 
Lieut. John L. Worden, with First Assistant Engineer 
Isaac Newton at the throttle. This Monitor was the new 
defender of the flag that appeared at Hampton Roads. 

The battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac was 
begun by a shot from the Merrimac at 8.30 o'clock on the 
morning of March 9. It missed the mark, but in a short 
time the Monitor was alongside where the Merrimac's 
broadside would bear, and then the guns of both ships were 
worked with energy. Nevertheless no shot from either 
ship penetrated the other, and the battle was really a 
draw. The Monitor, however, remained on the battlefield, 
and in its moral influence on the minds of the people every- 
where the conflict was a victory for the revolving turret 



90 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

as against the casemate, and of the Union forces against 
the Confederates. Moreover the brilliant cruises of the 
Merrimac up the Potomac, and as far as New York, that 
had been planned, were blocked. 

In one point of view the Monitor saved the Nation, at 
least from a fiercer struggle, if not absolutely. For the 
monitors built after this battle were for the time the most 
formidable ships of the world, particularly when they 
were armed with 15-inch Dahlgrens and 150-pounder rifles. 
Such ships were easily and rapidly built. We soon had a 
fine fleet of them in actual service, and we could have built 
many more had a necessity arisen. These facts were well 
known in Europe. And that is to say that the moral in- 
fluence of the Monitor was far and away stronger than its 
actual power in battle. When the American Minister to 
England and the American Minister to France protested 
against the building of armed ships for the use of the Con- 
federates, the protest was heard because of the power of 
the American battleship, and not for any other reason. 
The rulers of both France and England were anxious to 
see the growing power of the American people broken by 
a dismemberment of the Union, but neither thought it 
good poHcy to take sides in the dispute. Having the most 
powerful battleships of the day we had peace with Europe. 

The Monitor is called a battleship because it was placed 
in the fighting line. The battleships now afloat are devel- 
opments of the two ironclads that fought for supremacy 
in Hampton Roads, a combination, after a fashion, of the 
Merrimac^ s iron-clad walls and revolving turrets. 

In the course of the Civil War the Confederates had 
afloat more than twenty cruisers, all told, that were com- 
missioned for the purpose of destrojdng the merchant ships 
of the Union. It has been beheved that commerce-de- 
stroyers, in modem navies, have had considerable influence 



THE NAVAL WORK OF THE CIVIL WAR 91 



in preserving the peace of nations, but it is certain that 
such vessels never ended a war. The Sumter, Capt. 
Raphael Senunes, was the first of the Confederate cruisers 
to raid Union commerce. She was a merchantman that 
was fitted out at New Orleans \\ith five small guns. She 
escaped through the blockade at the mouth of the Mis- 
sissippi on Jime 30, 1861, captured eighteen vessels, of 
which eight were burned, and was eventually blockaded 
at Gibraltar by three Federal cruisers, when she was sold 
to a Liverpool merchant who made a blockade-runner of 
her. 

The Florida was the first Confederate cruiser built by 
the British. Under the name Oreto she sailed from Liver- 
pool on March 22, 1862, bound for the Bahamas. Her guns 
and stores followed in another ship, and at an uninhabited 
island of the group Capt. John Newland Maffitt took com- 
mand. Yellow fever prostrated all hands except Maffitt 
and five others, but he steamed over to Cardenas Bay to 
recruit. There he was stricken down with the fever, and 
was then ordered to Havana by the Spanish authorities. 
Ivnowing that trouble awaited him there Maffitt got out 
of his bed, and with a pluck that was never surpassed, he 
ran his ship across to Mobile. He arrived in sight of the 
blockading fleet in broad day. With the British flag fly- 
ing he steered into the midst of this fleet, and then substi- 
tuting his own flag for the foreign, he made a dash for port 
and won. It is hard to kill a man like that with yellow 
fever or anything else. 

In Mobile he gained health and a crew. Then he went 
cruising again, crossed to France, came back to the West 
Indies, and after having captured thirty-seven merchant- 
men he anchored in Bahia, Brazil. The United States 
steamer Wachusett, Conmiander Xapoleon Collins, was in 
port, and CoUins would not respect the port of a neutral 



92 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

nation that was not able to compel respect. While Maffitt 
was on shore he captured the Florida, as she was then 
called, and took her to Hampton Roads. The Government 
agreed to return her to Bahia, but while she lay in the 
care of three common sailors she sank at her moorings. 
One of the men opened the sea-cocks. 

The most famous of all the cruisers was the Alabama, 
a steamer built by the British for the purpose of destroy- 
ing American merchantmen. She went to sea on July 29, 
1862, and for two years she cruised the seas from the 
American coast to India, destroying ships and cargoes to 
the amount of $6,547,609. On June 11, 1864, the Ala- 
bama reached Cherbourg, France, where she was blockaded 
by the Kearsarge, Capt. John A. Winslow, until the 19th. 
Then she steamed out to make a fight. The Alabama 
carried a 100-pounder British rifle and an 8-inch British 
shell gun for her pivots, while the Kearsage carried two 
11-inch Dahlgrens. The men before the mast on the Ala- 
bama were also British subjects, as a whole. Save for the 
officers she was a British ship fighting against an Amer- 
ican. For an hour and ten minutes after the battle opened 
the crews worked their guns, and then Semmes headed 
the Alabama for the beach. She was in a sinking condi- 
tion, however, and when the Kearsarge ranged up within 
400 yards and continued the fire, the water soon drowned 
the fires in the Alabamans stokehole. The Confederate 
flag was then hauled down, the wounded were sent off in 
two boats that remained able to float, and then, after 
throwing his sword into the sea, Semmes and the remainder 
of his crew leaped overboard. Then the ship went down. 
Mr. John Lancaster, an Englishman, picked up Semmes, 
and a number of the Alabamans crew, and carried them to 
England with his steam yacht, called the Deerhound. Far- 
ragut, who never forgot the bearing of the British Govern- 



THE NAVAL WORK OF THE CIVIL WAR 93 

merit toward his country in the early days, said of this 
battle : 

'^I would sooner have fought that fight than any ever 
fought on the ocean." 

In addition to the cruisers the British built for the Con- 
federates two double-turreted battleships with armor from 
4^ to 5J inches thick, and carrying two 9-inch rifles to each 
turret. Lord Russell declared that ''her Majesty's gov- 
ernment cannot interfere" in any way with the vessels; but 
when it was found that to let them go was to bring on war 
with the United States, a way to stop them was found. 
As Farragut used to say in those days, any European gov- 
ernment would have found the United States ''a hard nut 
to crack," in spite of the Civil War. 

An ironclad called the Stonewall, built in France, got 
to sea, but the war ended before she could do any dam- 
age. The American whaling fleet of the Pacific was 
wiped out by the Shenandoah, a ship fitted out in Great 
Britain. Through the Confederate cruisers the British 
ship merchants were able to sweep the American mer- 
chantman from the sea. The British Government after- 
ward paid $15,500,000 for the actual damages proved to 
have been done by British-built cruisers to American mer- 
chantmen and cargoes. For that price the British were 
able to get rid of their only rival upon the high seas. And 
from that day to this the American people have allowed 
the British ship merchant to enjoy his success unmolested 
by any effort to give the American flag its old-time 
standing. 

The Federal control of the Mississippi was obtained in 
1863 by the capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. The 
most important naval event in connection with this work 
was the dash Farragut made past Port Hudson on the night 
of March 14 of that year. At that time General Grant 



94 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

was at Vicksburg and General Banks was before Port Hud- 
son. The Confederates held the river between the two 
towns, and they were drawing the greater part of their 
supplies of food from the Red River region. It was to 
cover this part of the Mississippi that Farragut prepared 
to pass Port Hudson. 

The squadron with which Farragut purposed going up 
the river included the Hartford, the Monongahela, the side- 
wheeler Mississippi, and the Richmond, besides three small 
gunboats. The gunboats were lashed alongside the large 
screw ships in a fashion that would protect them from the 
fire of the forts. At the same time they could aid the 
larger vessels as tugs, in case the larger ones were disabled. 
In fact, each combination of a big ship and a little one 
could be handled much as a twin-screw ship is handled. 

Though unnoted at the time a sentence written by Far- 
ragut when preparing to pass the forts has had a great in- 
fluence on the navy in late days, and its influence is likely 
to increase in future. In the course of his general orders 
to his captains occurs this sentence : 

"I think the best protection against the enemy's fire is a 
well-directed fire from our own guns.'' 

When John Paul Jones was asked if he had surrendered, 
he repHed: ''I have not yet begun to fight." Said Perry, 
when told that the British had the weather gauge on Lake 
Erie: ''To windward or leeward they shall fight to-day." 
Equally inspiring, and full of instruction as well, were the 
words of Farragut. No other instance is on record where 
the whole art of war was described in a single sentence. 
And if properly considered it describes the art of main- 
taining the peace. 

In the effort to pass the batteries the steamer Missis- 
sippi grounded and had to be fired and abandoned. Capt. 
Melancton Smith and his executive officer, Lieut. George 



THE NAVAL WORK OF THE CIVIL WAR 95 

Dewey (the present admiral), were the last to leave the 
ship. Of the other vessels only the Hartford and her con- 
sort, the Albatross, succeeded in passing the forts. But 
these served to blockade the river until Vicksburg and 
Port Hudson surrendered, July 3 and 9, 1863, when the 
authority of the flag was finally restored to the whole 
river. 

The stretching of the navy in an anaconda coil, which 
had first been attempted in 1862, was now completed. 
Even the worst enemies of the American people that Eu- 
rope afforded saw that the restoration of the Union was 
within view, though for the sake of lessening what has been 
called in late years ''the American peril," the Confederates 
were encouraged to keep on. In that way only could the 
American people be weakened. It was not until after Far- 
ragiit entered Mobile Bay that our European enemies would 
acknowledge that the secessionists were beaten. The story 
of the battle is also interesting on other accounts. 

The channel into Mobile Bay lay directly under the 
guns of Fort Morgan, and it had been blocked with three 
lines of torpedoes save for a narrow space left open for 
blockade-runners. Beer kegs and tin cans were used to a 
considerable extent in making the torpedoes placed here 
(and elsewhere) for the defence of channels during the 
Civil War. Some were anchored by chains that held them 
just under the surface of the water. Others were secured 
to the ends of long poles fixed in frames that were sunk 
to the bottom. The ships that approached were supposed 
to explode them by contact. Several Federal ships were 
destroyed by torpedoes in the course of the war. 

The fort was armed with ten good rifles of the day, 
beside fifteen smoothbores of 8-inch calibre or better. Afloat 
within the bay was a casemated ironclad, the Tennessee, 
carrjdng from five to six inches of iron plates over heavy 



96 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

wood backing and armed with six rifles of 6-inch and 7- 
inch cahbre. There were also three poor steamers armed 
with excellent guns, including some 7-inch rifles and 9- 
inch smoothbores. This fleet was under the command of 
Admiral FrankUn Buchanan, who had been a captain in 
the old navy, while Fort Morgan was commanded by 
Brig.-Gen. R. L. Page, who had been a commander in the 
old navy. 

In making a dash past the forts below New Orleans 
Farragut had seen that when once he was above them he 
would have them cut off from their base of supplies while 
he could obtain anything needed through the bayous. At 
Mobile, however, a dash past the forts would not surely 
cut off the Confederates from supplies, because it was con- 
ceivable that supplies could be sent around by land. More- 
over when once in the bay Farragut would have great 
difficulty in securing supplies unless he first reduced Fort 
Morgan, or another one called Fort Powell that conmianded 
Grant's Pass leading to New Orleans by the inside route. 
To pass Fort Morgan and maintain himself when within, 
Farragut had, in all, eighteen ships carrying 159 guns be- 
sides howitzers. Of these ships two were large single- 
turret monitors carrying two 15-inch Dahlgrens, and two 
were shoal-draught, double-turreted monitors, built for use 
in the Mississippi, and carrjdng four 11-inch guns each. Of 
wooden ships Farragut had the Hartford, the Brooklyn, and 
the Richmond, carrying from twenty to twenty-four guns 
each, the others being of much less power, though 11-inch 
and 9-inch guns were well sprinkled through the fleet. 

In preparing for the order of battle the monitors were 
placed in advance and a little to the right of the wooden 
ship line, the single-turret monitor Tecumseh, Commander 
Tunis A. M. Craven, leading all. At the head of the 
wooden ships Farragut placed the Brooklyn, partly be- 



THE NAVAL WORK OF THE CIVIL WAR 97 

cause she could work four bow guns, partly because she 
carried a sort of derrick that was supposed to be able to 
pick up torpedoes, and partly because the other officers 
wanted him to put the Hartford in a less exposed position 
than he naturally would have taken. The wooden ships 
were arranged in pairs, as at Port Hudson, and the general 
orders declared that "ii one or more of the ships is dis- 
abled, their partners must carry them through, if possible; 
but if they cannot, then the next astern must render the 
required assistance." A subsequent order said that all 
ships must pass between the fort and a prominent red 
buoy seen in the channel, in order to avoid the torpedoes. 

Finally six gunboats were detailed to go to the east and 
south of Fort Morgan and shell it while the fleet passed in. 

It was at four o'clock on the morning of August 5, 
1864, that Farragut called his men for the battle of Mo- 
bile Bay. At 6.30 o'clock the column was formed in the 
channel, and at 6.55 the whole line moved forward while 
Craven, of the Tecumseh, fired her two guns in his eager- 
ness to begin the battle. The fort replied ten minutes 
later, and then the Confederate ships formed in line across 
the channel just within the fort. 

As the ships drew near and the smoke fogged in the 
fort, Farragut climbed up the port main rigging of the 
Hartford to the top. A Httle later a quartermaster came 
up and passed a bit of rope around him so that in case he 
were wounded he would not fall to the deck; and when 
the people heard how he had gone into battle '^lashed to 
the mast," they were thrilled as never before. But a far 
more splendid exhibition of courage was to come. 

As the Tecumseh neared the fort the brave Craven grew 
so impatient to attack the Confederate ironclad Tennessee, 
lying just to the west of the proper channel, that he could 
not wait to pass to the east of the red buoy as he had been 



98 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

ordered to do, and with helm to starboard, the monitor 
was driven across the torpedo line. In a moment she be- 
gan to rock in the water and then with her stern rising in 
the air until the wheel was seen whirling, down she sank. 
A torpedo had exploded under her. 

It was a frightful disaster, and the captain of the 
Brooklyn, leading the wooden ship line, ordered her en- 
gines stopped. A Httle later, although the other ships were 
closing in on her, and the line was rapidly becoming con- 
fused, the Brooklyn began to back up in a way that closed 
the open channel. With the Confederate gunners hurling 
their shot into the disordered fleet as never before, the su- 
preme moment of the battle had come, and leaning out from 
the shrouds of the Hartford, Farragut hailed the Brooklyn, 

''What is the matter?" he said. 

''Torpedoes," replied her captain. 

"Damn the torpedoes ! Full speed, Jouett ! Four bells, 
Captain Drayton," shouted Farragut to the captains of 
his own ship, and that alongside, and then he headed 
straight for the torpedo line. And when the crew of the 
Hartford heard those orders they leaped as one man to the 
starboard rail, facing the fort, and gave three yells of de- 
fiance. It was the good vigorous "Damn the torpedoes" 
that inspired that crew with the joy of battle. It was the 
determination to force the fighting in the face of the most 
appalling danger that saved the day. For the whole fleet 
followed the Hartford into the bay, passing the ironclad 
Tennessee as if she were no more than a fort, and driving 
the smaller Confederate vessels out of the battle. Bu- 
chanan, with characteristic determination to fight it out 
promptly, followed the Federal fleet to the wide water of 
the bay. But there his ship was fairly mobbed. Her 
smokestack was shot away, flooding the fighting deck 
with unbearable gases. Her steering gear was destroyed. 



THE NAVAL WORK OF THE CIVIL WAR 99 

Her port shutters were rivetted fast by the impact of shot 
so that her guns were put out of action, and finally the re- 
lentless hammering of the solid shot from big guns began 
to knock the casemate to splinters. But it was not until 
she was a helpless target that her flag was hauled down. 

Having conquered the freedom of the bay, Fort Gaines, 
a structure on an island west of Fort Morgan, soon surren- 
dered. The fort commanding Grant Pass was next aban- 
doned by the Confederates, and Farragut was then safe, 
while Fort Morgan was cut off from available succor, by 
the landing of a detachment of soldiers. General Page 
held up his flag till the last gasp, but the end was inevitable 
once Farragut had won the bay. 

Two incidents of the battle are worth consideration by 
way of contrast. The six gunboats sent to bombard Fort 
Morgan from eastward were held at such long range that 
their projectiles failed to reach the fort. The commanding 
officer was of the small number that always remember well 
and obey with care all orders forbidding them to risk 
their ships unduly, and so he lost his only opportunity to 
earn the gratitude of his country. On the other hand 
Craven disobeyed the letter of his orders in order to get at 
the enemy — and so gained immortal glory. It is also 
memorable that after the victory at Mobile Bay such 
papers as the British Army and Navy Gazette — European 
periodicals that had done everything possible to aid in 
the destruction of the Union — were ready to admit that the 
end was within view. 

The naval conflicts that followed the battle of Mobile 
Bay need no description here. Charleston and Fort Fisher 
were both taken by combinations of the army and naval 
forces early in 1865, and the people of all the States were 
to begin, soon thereafter, the work of building anew the 
Nation. ^^^ 



X 

BUILDING THE WHITE SQUADRON 

Foe a brief interval at the end of the Civil War the moni- 
tors with their 15-inch Dahlgren guns (some had a rifle each, 
made of cast-iron with a wrought band shrunk over the 
breech), made the American navy the most powerful in the 
world. But political considerations, of which it need 
be said only that the good of party seemed to be some- 
thing different from and of more importance than the 
good of the country, led Congress to neglect the navy. 
The ships that had done good service in the war wore out. 
Repairs became expensive. To save money it was thought 
best to build nothing new and let the old ships go to the 
scrap heap. A secretary of the navy who was ambitious 
to build made the mistake of constructing ships on the 
false pretence of making repairs. But what was of greater 
weight than all else was the fact that, naval ships being 
just then in a period of transition, it was confidently as- 
serted that it would be good policy to allow European 
countries 'Ho make the experiments for us." While Eu- 
ropean nations developed breech-loading rifles, and battle- 
ships of vastly greater size and power than our monitors, 
we did nothing, and within ten years after the Civil War 
ended the American navy was the standard of inefficiency 
among the seamen of the world. 

It was a period to recall the days before the War of 
1812. Because we had no naA^ a Spanish coast-guard 
.seized an American ship on the high seas, and held her in 



BUILDING THE WHITE SQUADRON 101 

Cuban ports under guard for ninety-eight days because 
the captain of the coast-guard supposed that she might 
have been carrjdng arms to Cuban insurgents. The pro- 
tests of the American Administration were treated with 
contempt; they were even left unnoticed and unanswered. 
American citizens found on a ship that belonged to a Cuban 
fihbuster were shot to death without trial, and while the 
shooting party was at its work (it was at Santiago de Cuba), 
the American consul at the port was held a prisoner in his 
office by soldiers who were stationed at his door. This 
happened within eight years after the end of the Civil War 
— so rapidly did the respect of foreign nations fall away as 
our navy was allowed to decay. It was the lack of a navy 
that almost brought on a war with Spain in 1873. 

We saved a few dollars while other nations were ''ex- 
perimenting for us," but there are those who understand 
that what we lost in the development of the brains of our 
mechanics and inventors by letting the other nations ''do 
the experimenting for us" was of infinitely greater value 
than the whole revenue of the Nation. Even that is not 
all of the evil of the poHcy then followed. For Congress 
voted $15,000,000 to prepare the navy for war, after the 
Virginius affair, as the trouble was called, but the money 
was not used for the purpose. Somebody spent it — no- 
body knows who, or how, apparently. 

On June 29, 1881, eight years after the American citi- 
zens were murdered at Santiago de Cuba, the United States 
for the third time began the work of building a naval fleet. 
On that day a board, of which Rear Admiral John Rodgers 
was the head, was appointed by the Secretary of the Navy 
to consider the state of the navy, and report what action 
ought to be taken by Congress. The board recommended 
the building of twenty-one battleships and seventy cruisers, 
besides torpedo-boats and rams. Of the programme thus 



102 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

proposed Congress built, in due time, one worthless ram. 
But the subject was before the people and a host of naval 
officers who could handle the pen as well as the sword, 
kept the agitation going until the Nation saw that the con- 
dition of affairs then existing was not only humihating and 
destructive of the moral fibre of the people, but it steadily 
invited aggressions and actual war. In consequence the 
Nation was finally aroused to a point where Congress pro- 
vided money for beginning work on two cruisers. 

For seventeen years we had allowed foreign coimtries 
'Ho do the experimenting for us." In that time England 
had learned how to build an Inflexible with armor from 
18 to 24 inches thick, and carrying four built-up rifles of 
16-inch calibre, firing a projectile of 1,700 pounds weight 
that exerted a muzzle energy of 27,213 foot-tons and was 
able to pierce 27.5 inches of wrought iron armor at a range 
of 500 yards. Our best naval ship was a monitor carrying 
smoothbore guns that fired a shell having a muzzle energy 
of 7,997 foot-tons — something as little able to penetrate 
the armor of the day as a flint-lock musket would have 
been. The Inflexible could fight on water rough enough 
to compel the monitor to close all ports, and she could 
steam almost twice as fast as the monitor. 

But we had a complete book knowledge of the best of 
the British ships, and now we were to begin using the ad- 
vantages we had gained by allowing other nations 'Ho do 
the experimenting for us." 

The Secretary of the Navy appointed officers to plan 
and build the ships that Congress had authorized, but when 
they got together they found that the only facilities that the 
country afforded for their work included draughting boards, 
pencils, pens, and India ink. There was not a shipyard 
in the country adapted to the construction of a 5,000-ton 
cruiser, not to mention an armorclad. There was not a 



BUILDING THE WHITE SQUADRON 103 

mill in the country that could make the steel plates and 
frames required, let alone armor. There was not a ham- 
mer in the country that could make a forging for the 
smallest rifle needed. Instead of building a 5,000-ton 
cruiser fit to meet anything of the kind afloat, we began 
perforce by building a despatch boat and two httle 3,000- 
ton cruisers, and we could not do even that much until 
facilities for making steel plates had been provided. We 
had to do some experimenting for ourselves. We could 
not serve an apprenticeship by proxy. 

In 1884 the Secretary of the Navy, having no confi- 
dence in the abihty of our own naval architects, sent to 
England for plans for further shipbuilding that had been 
authorized by Congress. Plans for the Texas, the Charles- 
ton, and the Baltimore were thus obtained. But the EngHsh 
designers in every case sold him gold bricks, so to speak 
— plans that were defective — and it was only after many 
alterations that ships fit for duty were provided. The er- 
ror of buying plans abroad was a continuation of the error 
of allowing other nations to do the experimenting for us. 
The people who made the error failed to see that what 
the Nation needed first of all was men able to build ships, not 
merely as good as those of Europe, but ships with enough 
new ideas in them to make them the best afloat, as the 
Constitution was in her class. 

Nevertheless this Secretary of the Navy did one thing 
that atoned for all errors. By skilful handUng of the ap- 
propriations he accumulated a fund wherewith he was 
able to induce a steel-making company to erect a plant 
for the production of armor and the forgings for high- 
power guns. 

By the contract signed with John Roach, on July 23, 
1883, for the building of the despatch boat Dolphin, the 
3,000-ton Atlanta and Boston, the mills for the making of 



104 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

such steel plates as were needed for ship hulls were guar- 
anteed. By the contract of June 1, 1887, with the Beth- 
lehem Iron Company, faciHties for making the best of 
steel armor and forgings for the largest of steel guns were 
provided. It is well worth recalling that the enormous 
steel industry of the present day was begim and made 
possible by the building of the modem navy. For the 
battle of Lake Champlain Macdonough built a very good 
ship in thirty days. During the Civil War we built some 
good fighting machines of that period in ninety days. But 
between June 29, 1881, and June 1, 1887, it was demon- 
strated that we had to build steel miUs before we could 
build modern battleships, and it was thereafter demon- 
strated that even with the best of facihties it was not pos- 
sible to build a battleship in less than a year, though the 
work was driven at the highest practicable speed. 

We began our new navy with a despatch boat. Our 
first armored ship worth mention was the lamented Maine. 
She carried side armor twelve inches thick, and she had 
two 10-inch guns in each turret. Her keel was laid on 
October 17, 1888, and she was launched on November 18, 
1890. Up to that date we were experimenting for our- 
selves, and we had learned how to do the work. The time 
had then come when we were ready to begin to set a pace 
in the design and construction of fighting ships for the 
world to consider. On August 28, 1890, the contract for 
the construction of the armored cruiser New York was 
signed. She was launched December 2, 1891. She was 
380.5 feet long by 65 wide, and she displaced 8,200 tons. 
Under the contract the speed was to be twenty knots an 
hour, but a premium was allowed for any excess of speed. 
On May 22, 1892, she was at sea for her official trial, and 
if we consider the effect of that trial upon the navy and 
the Nation we shall find few other days to compare with 



BUILDING THE WHITE SQUADRON 105 

it. For because of the pessimistic habit of thought cul- 
tivated during the dark ages of the navy even the officers 
who were to test her had not full confidence that she would 
make good the record for which she was designed. But 
when with eager eyes they watched the swift beating of 
connecting rods and the smooth whirr of shafts, and in 
the midst of the perspiring heat of the air they found the 
bearings cool, while the indicator cards showed such power 
as they had never seen before, their fears faded away. 
For four hours they kept their eyes on engine-room and 
taffrail log and clock, and then when the time was done 
the whole crew burst into cheers while a sailor chmbed 
aloof and lashed a broom to the mast-head. She had cov- 
ered twenty-one sea miles an hour. No such ship as that 
had ever floated the '^gridiron flag"; no such ship of the 
class floated any flag. The shame that for twenty-five 
years had rested on our navy was wiped out. The New 
York was the Constitution of the new navy we affection- 
ately called the White Squadron. 

And then came the battleship era. By the act of June 
30, 1890, Congress provided for three battleships — ''coast 
defence," of course. It is said that when the bill had 
been signed. Secretary of the Navy Benjamin F. Tracy 
sent for Lewis Nixon, then in the Constructors' Bureau, 
and said to him informally : 

"Now, sir, what you've to do is to design a ship that 
can Hck anything afloat." 

And Nixon designed the Oregon. Two 13-inch guns, 
the most powerful then made, were put in each of two 
main turrets located over the keel at bow and stem. Two 
turrets were then located over each rail, and in each of 
them two 8-inch guns were mounted. Along the side 
armor walls were placed four 6-inch guns. The ship dis- 
placed nearly 10,300 tons and the speed attained was 



106 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

15.547 knots. The armor varied from fifteen to eighteen 
inches in thickness. 

The Oregon and her class are out of date now, though 
that is due chiefly to the fact that the designer was ham- 
pered by the ancient idea that when we go to war we must 
invite the enemy to come to our harbors and coasts to do 
the fighting — it was imperative that these battleships 
should be for ''coast defence." They have but a small coal 
capacity, nevertheless in their day, if able to get into the 
battle fine, there was no ship afloat equal to them. 

In the development of guns the records show that in 
those of the largest calibre for ship use we have usually 
led the world as we did with the Dahlgrens and with the 
24-pounders of 1812. But in the broadside batteries, we 
have been frequently behind the European standard of 
efficiency. For instance the New York carried 4-inch guns 
in broadside; the Brooklyn, a greater New York, carried 
5-inch guns; English ships of the period carried 6-inch guns. 
But that condition of affairs was changed when in 1901 
the Bureau of Ordnance developed the 7-inch rifle for use 
in broadside batteries. And following that. Congress, by 
the act of July 1, 1902, authorized the construction of two 
ships, since known as the Louisiana and Connecticut, which 
were designed to carry four 12-inch, eight 8-inch, and 
twelve 7-inch guns, besides twenty 3-inch guns, thus once 
more giving the American navy ships that for the moment 
were the world's standard of fighting efficiency. 

WHien our people did finally cease to allow other nations 
to do the experimenting for us and thus gave our navy men 
opportunity to exercise their inventive talent and enterprise, 
the efficiency of our navy was assured. Through their work 
the time came when, in our deahngs with other peoples, we 
would ''not be influenced, or even be suspected of being 
influenced, by a consciousness of weakness on the sea." 



XI 

THE WAR WITH SPAIN 

As every reader of the present time knows, the war with 
Spain grew out of the infinitely cruel and destructive ef- 
forts of the Spanish Government to quell the struggle that 
the Cubans were making for liberty. In the course of the 
revolution the Spaniards built lines of forts across the 
island, with barbed wire entanglements from fort to fort 
in order to stop the migration of Cubans from point to point. 
The plantations of men supposed to be in sjonpathy with 
the revolution were desolated. At the last the rural pop- 
ulation was brought to the cities and held there in idle- 
ness to starve. The whole island was in a state of an- 
archy, and not for a moment did the Government forces 
control an inch of soil beyond the ranges of their guns. 
The island being entirely ''within the economic orbit of 
the United States," its people appealed to us for help. 

At that cry many who dreaded the influence of war 
said that the Cubans were as cruel as their masters; that 
they were incapable of self-government, and that therefore 
we ought not to interfere. But others repUed: ''If what 
you say be true we ought to drive from the Americas the 
barbarous government that could produce such a people." 

It was plain to the thinking people of the United States, 
as Ruskin said, that "the principle of non-intervention, as 
now preached among us, is as selfish and cruel as the worst 
frenzy of conquest, and differs from it only by being not only 
maUgnant but dastardly." 



108 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

President McKinley saw that it was his imperative duty 
to interfere, and in 1897 he said to the Spanish Govern- 
ment in diplomatic but unmistakable language : 

''You must improve the state of affairs in Cuba or we 
will do it for you." 

Being unable to do this without giving the Cubans 
freedom, the attitude of the whole Spanish people became 
menacing toward the United States. The Spanish min- 
ister at Washington declared that the President was ''weak, 
and catering to the rabble, and, besides, a low politician." 
The Spanish papers, particularly in Cuba, were filled with 
matter calculated to rouse a hatred of all Americans. 
Cartoons were spread among those who could not read to 
effect the same end. So much ill feeling was aroused at 
Havana that, at last our little battleship Maine, Capt. 
Charles D. Sigsbee, was sent to Havana for use as a refuge 
for American citizens there in case of mob attacks upon 
them. 

The contrast between the two peoples at that time is 
instructive: the one was so vituperative and so ready with 
adjectives expressive of contempt, while the other was so 
incredulous about the threat of war, and withal not a Uttle 
amused by the Spanish antics. Moreover the Spanish were 
poorly informed as to the real sentiment in the United 
States, and what was worse they did not know the real 
strength of the American navy. They beheved that we 
were too much absorbed in making dollars to fight, and 
that we could not fight well if we would. Many people 
in Havana — even commissioned army officers — supposed 
that the Maine was our best battleship, and some sup- 
posed that she was our only one. It was their belief that 
our navy was weak that led the Spanish to commit the 
aggressions which made war unavoidable, and that is one 
of the most important facts in the history of the war. 



THE WAR WITH SPAIN 109 

The Maine was moored at a buoy where no man-o'- 
war had been moored before, and at 9.40 o'clock, on the 
night of February 15, 1898, she was destroyed by a torpedo 
that was exploded under her bottom. When an official 
count was had the total number killed was found to be 
267. 

Captain Sigsbee and the survivors were brought before 
a court of inquiry — Capt. W. T. Sampson, Capt. French E. 
Chadwick, Lieut. -Commander WilUam P. Potter and Lieut .- 
Commander Adolph Marix. This court found ^'that the 
loss of the Maine was not in any respect due to fault or 
negligence on the part of any of the officers or crew"; but 
that on the contrary she was '^destroyed by the explosion 
of a submarine mine." 

The testimony taken by the court was made public, 
and since that time all fair-minded people throughout the 
world have been fully convinced that the men of the 
Maine were murdered by the act of the Spanish in Havana. 

At the time the report of the court of inquiry was made 
public we had a considerable squadron at Key West. It 
included the New York (flagship), the battleships Iowa, 
Massachusetts, Indiana, and Texas, and a number of cruis- 
ers, gunboats, and torpedo-boats. Capt. W. T. Sampson 
was promoted to the command of this force. A coast-de- 
fence squadron was gathered in the Chesapeake with the 
Brooklyn for flagship, and to it were added the Massachu- 
setts and Texas, and the swift commerce destroyers Minne- 
apolis and Columbia for scouts. Commodore W. S. Schley 
was placed in command of this. At Hong-Kong Commo- 
dore George Dewey gathered a squadron of six cruisers and 
gunboats. The Olympia, an unarmored cruiser of 5,870 
tons displacement, armed with four 8-inch and ten 5-inch 
guns, was the flagship. 

It should be noted, however, that as war drew near, 



110 



A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 



the battleship Oregon came around from the Pacific coast 
by the way of the Strait of Magellan, and arrived fit for 
battle soon after the war began. A cruiser, built in Eng- 
land and renamed the New Orleans, was added to the 
squadron at Key West; to which point, also, was brought 
the httle cruiser squadron that had been on the South 
American station. 

Having counted and prepared our naval ships as best 
we could we found the number insufficient, and many mer- 
chantmen were purchased or chartered and converted to 
war uses, as well as possible. They ranged in size from a 
16,000-ton liner to a yacht of 100 tons. The swifter of the 
vessels were commissioned as despatch boats, while a few, 
including the old yacht Corsair, that was taken into the 
service as the Gloucester, were fitted as torpedo-boat de- 
stroyers. 

On April 18, 1898, Congress, having made as thorough 
preparation for war as possible, passed a joint resolution 
(the vote in the House was 310 to 6), saying that ''the peo- 
ple of Cuba are and of right ought to be free and indepen- 
dent," and that it was the duty of the United States to 
expel the Spanish Government from that island. This res- 
olution was signed by the President at 11.24 o'clock on 
Wednesday morning, April 20. The same day a final de- 
mand on the Spanish Government was maide as a matter 
of form, and the same night the Spanish minister left Wash- 
ington. The American minister at Madrid left for home 
on the 21st. At sunrise, on Friday morning, April 22, 
the American squadron sailed from Key West under the 
command of Rear Admiral W. T. Sampson, bound with 
orders to establish a blockade off a part of the Cuban coast, 
beginning at Havana. As the squadron headed toward 
Havana a steam cargo ship, loaded with lumber, appeared 
off to westward. Her captain hoisted his colors to a flag- 



THE WAR WITH SPAIN 111 

staff at the taffrail. One glance showed the red and gold 
colors of Spain. Under orders from the New York, the 
Nashville started in pursuit and fired first a blank shot, and 
then a sohd projectile across the bows of the merchantman 
— the first shots of the war — at exactly 7.02 o'clock. Gun- 
ner Patrick MaHa fired the shots. It was the steamer 
Buenaventura (though her luck belied her name), of Bilboa. 

The eager zest of the officers of the navy during the 
days that followed on the coast of Cuba was most inspiring. 
The Httle gunboat Nashville started with flags fl5dng to 
meet a cruiser of four times her size, one morning, only to 
find that it was a British instead of a Spanish ship, and 
therefore friendly. The yacht Osceola, with a 6-pounder 
and a machine gun, started to meet and hold our own New 
Orleans in order that a transport in convoy might escape, 
for in the haze the New Orleans was supposed to be a Span- 
iard. The torpedo-boat Winslow steamed boldly under 
the batteries at Cardenas Bay. Lieut. C. M. Winslow and 
Lieut. C. W. Jungen, with their men worked for hours, 
under the close-range fire of Spanish batteries, in order to 
cut cables at Cienfuegos and Santiago. The torpedo-boats 
on the blockade at Havana used to hunt for still water in- 
side the harbor at night so that the watch below could 
rest in comfort. But space is lacking to describe more than 
the two important battles of the war — Manila and Santiago 
— and those only in brief. 

The battle at Manila was what Farragut would have 
called one of ''the elegancies of the profession." Having 
gathered his squadron at Mirs Bay, thirty miles from 
Hong-Kong, Commodore Dewey headed away for Manila 
on April 27, 1898, and on Sunday morning, May 1, his 
squadron was Ijang in Manila Bay at a point about seven 
miles west of Manila city, and an equal distance from Ca- 
vite Point. Within and behind Cavite Point lay a Spanish 



112 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

squadron of eleven vessels and two torpedo-boats. The 
vessels were not of the best quality, and some were under- 
going repairs, but most of them could work their guns, of 
which thirty-one were of 4.7-inch calibre or better. As a 
fleet it was decidedly inferior to the American, but it was 
supported by a battery of heavy Krupp guns on Cavite 
Point, while Dewey's ships were obliged to steam within 
range of the heavy batteries at Manila to get at the Span- 
iards. Dewey had come under orders which said '^You 
must capture or destroy the Spanish squadron." In view 
of the strength of the forts he needed battleships for the 
work; but what he lacked in armor plate he made up with 
Harveyized grit. The Spaniards opened fire on the Amer- 
ican fleet at 5.15 o'clock with a big gun at Manila, but the 
shot fell short, and then the Olympia led the way toward 
the Spanish ships at Cavite while the men at the guns 
stood ready ''with set teeth and the smile that one sees so 
often on the faces of men in the prize ring." 

At a range of a Httle more than two miles the firing 
began and the speed of the ships was slowed down to give 
the gunners a better chance. After passing the Spanish 
ships and the fort at Cavite at a range of a mile and a 
half the squadron turned and came back to pass at the 
same range, or less, four times more. The Spanish flag- 
ship, the Reina Christina, a 4,000-ton cruiser, started out 
to meet the Olympia, but the guns of the entire American 
squadron were turned upon her and she soon headed back 
to the shelter of Cavite Point. And as her stern was 
pointed toward the Yankees one of Dewey's gunners fired 
an 8-inch shot that raked her from stern to bow, as Com- 
modore Macdonough raked the enemy on Lake Champlain, 
killing and wounding sixty men, the captain being among 
the killed. At the same time the woodwork was splintered 
and fired so that the ship had to be abandoned. 



THE WAR WITH SPAIN 113 



A moment later two torpedo-boats came out to attack 
the Olympia, but the small guns were turned upon them, 
and one sank with all on board while the other hastened 
to the beach. 

At 7.45 o'clock the American fleet drew off to rest the 
men. Two of the Spanish ships had been destroyed and 
it was plainly seen that the remainder of the work would 
be easy. For three hours the men stretched out in com- 
fort on deck, eating a bite, and in many cases sleeping to 
make up for what they had lost the night before while 
coming into the bay. Then at 11.16 o'clock the battle 
was renewed. Special attention was now paid to the Ca- 
vite forts. The water under Cavite Point was too shoal 
for the larger cruisers but the Httle gunboat Petrel steamed 
right in among the Spanish squadron and at short range 
worked her old-fashioned 6-inch guns most effectively. 
The Boston grounded off Cavite Point, but that only served 
to steady her as a gun platform; and while she lay there 
she dismounted three of the guns in the fort. 

During all this time the Spanish fought most desper- 
ately. When the Don Antonio de Ullao went down in 
flames, her crew kept her guns firing until her deck was un- 
der water and the guns sank hissing out of sight. But the 
gunners had never learned to shoot, and a thousand shots 
flew wild where one reached its target. It was not the 
superior guns of Dewey's fleet that won ; it was the superior 
gimners. At 12.30 the Spaniards gave it up. They re- 
ported 78 killed on the ships and 23 in the forts, while 235 
were wounded afloat and 45 ashore — a total loss of 381. 
On our side 8 men were slightly wounded. 

How the victory of Commodore Dewey led to the cap- 
ture of Manila and the end of Spanish dominion in the 
Philippines need not be told here. But since some stress 
has been laid heretofore on the hostile attitude of the Brit- 



114 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

ish during and before our Civil War it is worth noting that 
when the American squadron left Hong-Kong the British 
sailors showed their sjonpathy for the Yankees; and later 
when certain continental naval ships showed hostile feelings 
in Manila Bay the British crews present manifested their 
belief that blood was thicker than water. 

Dewey's victory was most important for various rea- 
sons, but chiefly because it was the first battle of the war 
(it was also the first battle between squadrons of ships in 
which Americans had had part in many years), and it was 
a complete victory. The power of Spain was annihilated 
in that part of the world. Neither our Pacific coast nor 
any of our commercial interests in any part of the Pacific 
could be injured thereafter by the enemy. Later it led 
to the extension of peace and American liberty to the peo- 
ple of the group. But it was the destruction of Cervera's 
squadron at Santiago that was the decisive battle of the 
war. 

In the days immediately before war was declared, and 
while the Americans were concentrating their ships at Key 
West, the Spanish sent a fleet to the Canary Islands. This 
was regarded as a threat something like that which we were 
making by concentrating ships at Key West, but subse- 
quent facts showed that it was done rather to defend the 
Canaries; for the Spanish thought we would send a squad- 
ron to those islands and then to attack the Spanish coasts. 
Later, when it was seen that the Americans would not 
push the fighting the Spanish determined to do so, in a 
way, and this squadron was in part ordered to Cuban 
waters. It was supposed here that these ships were com- 
ing to invade the United States, and a most disgraceful 
panic developed along the Atlantic coast. It was a nat- 
ural panic, however — just what might be expected among 
men who had always talked of preparing for war by build- 



THE WAR WITH SPAIN 115 

ing ^' coast defences" only. In consequence of this state 
of public opinion swift cruisers were kept patroling the 
coast, and Admiral Sampson with a heterogeneous fleet 
that included the New York of twenty-one knots, the Indiana 
of fifteen, with the old monitor Miantonomoh, that had a 
speed of six knots and had to be towed, was sent as far 
east as San Juan, Porto Rico, in search of the Spanish. 

We had been talking, during many years, of the advan- 
tages the Atlantic Ocean would afford us, ''in case of war," 
but now we found ourselves obhged to go a thousand miles 
to the coast of the enemy. Perhaps it was worth while; 
at any rate it showed the utter inefficiency of the monitor 
class of ships for any use outside of a port. 

When this expedition had returned to Key West it 
found Schley's ''Fl3dng Squadron" there. The Govern- 
ment had learned that the Spanish squadron had reached 
the West India waters, but just where it was, however, no 
one then knew. As it was reasonable to suppose that the 
Spaniards would be obliged to enter some large port of 
Cuba in order to coal, and as it was supposed that they 
were carrying supplies for the blockaded forces at Havana, 
it was concluded they would steer either to Cienfuegos, on 
the south side, whence a railroad led to Havana, or more 
probably to Havana itself. Accordingly Sampson under- 
took watching the north shore and sent Schley to the south 
coast. 

On April 19 Schley left Key West with the Brooklyn 
(flagship), the Massachusetts, and the Texas. Other vessels, 
including the Iowa, joined him later. Cienfuegos was 
blockaded from May 21 to May 24, and then, beginning 
on the evening of May 28, a blockade was established at 
Santiago. On June 1 Rear Admiral Sampson with the 
New York, the battleship Oregon, that had arrived from the 
Pacific coast ready for battle, the auxiliary Mayflower and 



116 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

torpedo-boat Porter, arrived off Santiago, and took charge 
of the blockade. 

The Spanish squadron had arrived at Santiago on the 
19th. It consisted of the three 20-knot cruisers of 7,000 
tons, each of which carried two 11 -inch guns and ten 5.5- 
inch guns. They were named the Maria Teresa (flag), the 
Viscaya, and the Oquendo. A fourth cruiser was named 
the Colon. She was of 6,840 tons displacement. She had 
been built to carry ten 6-inch guns and six 4.7-inch, but 
the main battery was not on board — a fact that describes 
the Spanish naval administration sufficiently. The torpedo- 
boats Pluton and Furor were with the cruisers, a third tor- 
pedo-boat that had crossed the Atlantic with them having 
gone to San Juan, Porto Rico. The squadron was under 
the command of Admiral Cervera. 

Mounted in the forts at the mouth of the harbor were 
two modern guns and no more, the cahbre of each being 
just under six and one-half inches. 

As the entrance to the harbor was but 350 feet wide, 
it was obviously impracticable for the American fleet to 
force its way in. By day, therefore, Sampson formed his 
squadron in a half circle at a range of several miles from 
the mouth of the harbor. By night the squadron closed 
in to a range of two miles. Two battleships then steamed 
in another mile and stopped there. One of these did not 
show a light. The other kept her searchlights constantly 
trained on the entrance of the harbor while the darkened 
ship by the aid of these fights' kept her guns pointed at the 
same spot. Inside of these two battleships three small 
auxiliaries were kept in fine to watch for and meet any 
torpedo-boats that might come out, while still farther in, 
and usually less than a quarter of a mile from the beach, 
were three steam launches armed with 1 -pounders, and kept 
ready for any emergency that might arise. This invincible 



THE WAR WITH SPAIN 117 

blockade was maintained until the enemy was destroyed; 
for Sampson's whole habit of mind ''was to be in close 
touch with the enemy." 

At three o'clock on the morning of June 3, 1898, the 
collier Merrimac was sent into the harbor entrance in charge 
of Lieut. Richmond Pearson Hobson, with a crew of seven 
men, and she was sunk there to block the channel. It was 
a most perilous exploit, but as usual with such expeditions, 
it did not quite accomplish the intended object. 

On June 7 Admiral Sampson sent the Marhlehead and 
the converted merchantman Yankee to Guantanamo Bay, 
forty miles to the east of Santiago. They took possession 
of the bay and a Uttle later an encampment of marines was 
established there. The bay then became a convenient sta- 
tion for ships needing coal and when making repairs. 

On June 14 an army of 16,000 men sailed from Tampa, 
Fla., and on the 22d they began to land at Daiquira, to the 
eastward of Santiago. As this army (it was under General 
Shafter) was sure to besiege Santiago, and thus, as Captain- 
General Blanco pointed out at the time, bring starvation 
upon Cervera's squadron as well as upon the city, the Span- 
ish authorities were in a quandary as to what should be 
done with the ships. The ships certainly were not in an 
efficient state for battle, but to remain was to face destruc- 
tion in any event, and on July 2 Cervera received definite 
orders to leave within twelve hours. 

At sunrise the next morning the American squadron 
lay in a semicircle off the port at a distance of from two to 
four miles. The armored line included the Indiana, the 
New York, the Oregon, the Iowa, the Texas, and the Brook- 
lyn, in the order named, beginning at the east side of the 
harbor. The auxiliaries Gloucester and Vixen lay much 
closer in, the Gloucester to the east and the Vixen to the 
west side of the harbor entrance. 



118 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

It was a beautiful morning, but much like other morn- 
ings that had passed. The lookout on the flagship had 
seen nothing to indicate a change of purpose among the 
enemy in the harbor. In the meantime the admiral had 
made an engagement to visit the headquarters of the army, 
on that day, and at 8.50 o'clock the New York left the 
squadron and steamed east under three boilers of steam. 
Throughout the fleet the Sunday inspection was taken in 
hand at 9.30. 

But while the men were lining up for this purpose a 
lookout on the Texas stood with his hand on signal hal- 
liards, to which were bent signals that would announce the 
approach of the enemy, and on the Oregon a sailor stood 
with his finger on the trigger of a 6-pounder, ready to an- 
nounce the enemy's approach by firing a shot. It was in 
that fashion that watch was kept and the keen lookouts 
were rewarded. At 9.31 the sharp bow of the Spanish 
flagship was seen coming from behind Smith Cay, and at 
the first glance the lookouts began to bawl : 

''The fleet's coming out!" The signals were hoisted 
on the Texas and the gun was fired on the Oregon. With 
that the gongs on all the ships called all hands to quarters, 
and breaking ranks the men ran shouting for joy to gun- 
breech and stoke-hole. At the same instant the engineers 
on watch opened wide the throttles, and the American 
squadron began to close in for battle at close quarters, ac- 
cording to the plan that had been given to each captain 
in the squadron by Admiral Sampson. 

The Oregon had fired the first shot on the American 
side. The Maria Teresa began to fire in return as she 
rounded the shoal at the entrance of the harbor, and 
then the whole American fleet joined in. The Spanish 
ships formed a homogeneous squadron. Had they been 
concentrated on any one of the American ships there is no 



THE WAR WITH SPAIN 119 

telling how much damage they might have done. But 
Cervera had come out to escape only, and as fast as each 
of his ships arrived far enough outside she headed to the 
westward. All of them fired their guns with as much vigor 
as possible, but the ''well-directed fire from our own guns" 
proved far better than any armor; it simply overwhelmed 
the Spanish squadron. Within a short time after the 
Maria Teresa was seen at the harbor entrance she was set 
on fire and so badly cut up that she was turned toward 
the rocks on the beach to save the remainder of her crew 
from a frightful death. At 10.20 o'clock the Oquendo fol- 
lowed. Within forty-nine minutes from the time the en- 
emy's squadron was sighted two of them had been mor- 
tally injured. Then Captain Eulate of the Vizcaya, seeing 
that running would not alone save him, turned out to meet 
the Brooklyn, apparently intending to ram her. But the 
Brooklyn, with her helm hard aport, turned out to sea and 
avoided her, while the Vizcaya was soon shot to pieces by 
the other ships, and had to seek refuge on the beach as the 
Teresa and Oquendo had done. 

Last of all to come from the port were the two torpedo- 
boats — certainly a bad bit of tactics, for they might have 
found shelter under the Colon. But there they were in 
full view of the American fleet, while the Gloucester, with 
steam bottled up, was waiting for them. The Spaniards 
carried two 14-pounders, two 6-pounders, and two 1- 
pounders each, while the Gloucester carried four 6-pounders 
and four 3-pounders only. Rarely has a captain sought 
battle with such odds as that, but Conmiander Richard 
Wainwright drove his converted yacht in to close range. 
Other ships fired at the torpedo-boats at ranges of from 
4,000 to 4,500 yards, but Wainwright sank one and drove 
the other sinking to the beach. If the reader is ever in 
doubt as to the conduct of a naval officer let him ask what 



120 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 



would Nicholas Biddle or John Paul Jones or OHver Hazard 
Perry or David Glasgow Farragut or Richard Wainwright 
have done under the circumstances. 

In the meantime the Colon was making the best of her 
way to westward. She had held a course inside of the other 
Spanish ships, and having been sheltered by them some- 
what had passed through the blockading Hne. But the 
Brooklyn and the Oregon were in chase. For weeks Chief 
Engineer Milligan of the Oregon had ''made a sweat-box of 
her"; the crew had endured it, and now they had their re- 
ward. For while the other ships had been under steam 
too low, Milligan was able not only to drive the Oregon 
at her full speed, but he exceeded the best record that any 
of that class of ships had made. As the Colon fled, MilU- 
gan went down into the stoke-hole and in a short time the 
Oregon, though built for fifteen knots, was logging seven- 
teen an hour. And when Captain Clark allowed one of his 
junior officers to fire a gun at the enemy, MilHgan came 
up on deck and thanked him, saying that his men were 
fainting below, but if they could hear a shot, now and 
then, they could live through and keep her going. The 
swift Brooklyn was in the chase, as said, and both ships 
were gaining on the enemy, but it was when a shot from 
the Oregon's 13-inch gun fell beyond the Colon that the 
Spanish gave it up and turned ashore to meet the fate on 
the rocks that had befallen the other ships of the Spanish 
squadron. She was beached at the mouth of Rio Tarquino. 

The American squadron lost one man killed and one 
wounded. The Spanish squadron lost at least 350 killed 
and 160 wounded, while 70 officers and 1,600 men were 
taken prisoners. Superior speed carried our ships within 
range and superior gunnery, not superior armor, protected 
our men and destroyed the enemy. None of the Spanish 
ships was saved, though at least two of them might have 



/ 



THE WAR WITH SPAIN 121 

been by prompt effort, but the Spanish naval power was wiped 
out. The Spanish authorities did, indeed, start a squad- 
ron eastward as a threat to Dewey at Manila, but it was 
not an effective squadron, and a threat of a Yankee squad- 
ron on the Spanish coast stopped it. The destruction of 
Cei'vera's squadron decided the war. 

Nevertheless it is useful to point out that when the 
hulls of the wrecked Spanish ships had been examined it 
was found that out of more than 8,000 shots fired at them, 
only 123 struck home. To reach 123 hits the holes made 
by 6-pounders in the smokestacks were counted. If com- 
pared with what our gunners now do that record is but little 
short of ridiculous. 



XII 

OUR NAVY AS IT IS 

As a result of the war with Spain we found ourselves in 
possession of the Philippine Islands and Porto Rico. It 
has been definitely determined that we shall retain the 
government of these islands until the people thereof are 
fully capable of governing themselves, and the chances are 
that as fast as they reach that state of enlightenment they 
will rejoice that they Uve under the flag that first gave 
them opportunity for development. These islands we 
must protect. For many years we have had the Monroe 
Doctrine to uphold. No foreign nation shall obtain con- 
trol of another foot of soil on either of the Americas. And 
in defence of this doctrine we are as likely to be obHged to 
send a squadron to protect Rio Grande do Sul in southern 
Brazil as to any other part of the continent. We are build- 
ing the Panama Canal and we shall have to defend that as 
well as the new-made republic of Panama. We have de- 
termined that our merchants shall not be shut out of such 
markets as China and other similar powers afford by unfair 
''spheres of influence." 

In view of the obhgations that we have assumed as a 
world Power the old-time talk about the advantages of our 
situation with an ocean dividing us from the other great 
Powers of the world, and of needing coast-defence ships 
only is puerile. 

When we had no navy worth mention before the War 
of 1812 we suffered from aggressions that drove us to war. 



OUR NAVY AS IT IS 123 

When our navy was strong after that war even the slaver 
pirates that carried the flag on the coast of Africa were 
unmolested by foreign warships. When at about the year 
1848 our navy was again weak, aggressions were begun once 
more, but the building of the Merrimac and the Hartford, 
and the casting of the Dahlgren gun saved us from the hor- 
rors of a foreign war. During the Civil War we were saved 
from intervention and foreign aggression solely by the 
strength of the navy. Eight years after the Civil War our 
citizens were murdered in Cuba, the flag was outraged, 
and the whole Nation humihated because our navy had 
been allowed to dwindle and all but die. When in 1893 
the territory of Venezuela was threatened the mere fact 
that we were building and had facilities for continuing to 
build a new navy made the aggressor willing to leave its 
dispute with the little South American republic to a just 
tribunal. 

As we have had war or dastardly submission to wrong 
when our navy was weak, and peace when our navy was 
strong, so in future shall we have peace, or war and humil- 
iation, according as we build or neglect our guns afloat. 
After Japan's war with China the Powers of Europe gath- 
ered around the weak little brown ^^ heathen" and robbed 
him of the fruits of his victory. His navy was then weak. 
After the war with Russia the whole world gathered to 
applaud the Uttle brown giant. His navy was strong. 
Because of the strength of her navy Japan will have peace 
hereafter. 

Our navy materiel, to which we must look for the pres- 
ervation of peace, consists of four types of ships: battle- 
ships, cruisers, torpedo-boats, and auxiharies. There are 
subdivisions, also, of each of these classes. Thus, we have 
battleships like the Louisiana (16,000 tons), that is now 
afloat, which have powerful guns, ample armor, and a suf- 



124 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

ficient coal capacity to enable them to steam across the 
ocean and arrive in fighting trim. These are sea-going 
battleships. Then we have the Oregon class (10,524 tons), 
that carry heavy guns and thick armor but have a coal 
capacity that keeps them near a base of supplies. With 
them are to be classed the monitors, though the monitor 
is fit only for smooth water. These are coast-defence 
ships. 

All of our battleships carry 12-inch guns in the main 
turrets except some of the older ones which carry 13-inch. 
For the turrets on the rail 8-inch guns are provided 
while the broadside guns vary from 5-inch in the Iowa to 
7-inch in the later, Hke the Louisiana. All carry torpedo 
tubes also. The water-line armor varies from eighteen 
inches in the Oregon class down to nine in the latest. The 
turrets are thicker or thinner according to the gun. The 
12-inch guns are now protected by 12-inch armor, and the 
8-inch by 6.5. Acting on the theory that a battleship 
should depend on armor instead of gun power for protec- 
tion, engine power has been sacrificed to thickness of plate. 
Our very latest ships that have been laid down are designed 
for nineteen knots; all others for eighteen or less. 

In the cruiser class of ships are found the armored 
cruisers, the protected cruisers, the gunboats, and the 
scouts. In the armored cruiser speed is of the first consid- 
eration, guns second, and armor third. We built the New 
York with a speed of twenty-one knots ; we put 8-inch guns 
in her turrets and 4-inch in the broadside, and we gave her 
a broadside belt of armor four inches thick. Our latest, 
the Montana class, are designed for a speed of twenty-two 
knots; they carry four 10-inch guns in turrets and sixteen 
6-inch in broadside, and the armor belt is five inches thick. 
All these cruisers are provided with torpedo tubes. 

All the cruisers, and aU the battleships as well, have an 



OUR NAVY AS IT IS 125 

armor deck curved over the vitals. The New York has a 
displacement of 8,480 tons and the Montana of 14,500. 

Neither the protected cruisers nor gunboats need be 
described here. For while Dewey made the Olympia do a 
battleship job at Cavite Point, it is to the battleships that 
we must look as peace-makers. But a word must be said 
for a new class of cruisers recently designed and called 
scouts, because scouting for the enemy is their business. 
These vessels displace 3,750 tons, they are engined for 
twenty-five knots an hour, and they carry a battery of 
3-inch guns. 

The torpedo-boat must also have mention because the 
editors of our periodicals who go off at half-cock were quite 
confident, at the beginning of the Japanese-Russian war, 
that the torpedo-boat was to take the place of the battle- 
ship. The torpedo-boat whether it is built to work on the 
surface of the water, or beneath it, is a most useful little 
ship. In the night or in thick weather it can work havoc 
among an enemy's ships that are found within reach. The 
well-handled submarine can probably do more to keep a 
blockader awake than any other style of small boat. For 
the defence of coal stations in distant parts the submarine 
boat seems to be well adapted. We have sixteen torpedo- 
boat destroyers, which are large torpedo-boats, thirty-five 
torpedo-boats, and twelve submarines, besides the old 
wooden Stiletto. 

Since the Japanese-Russian war it has been seen that 
the battleship is the only ship worth building for battle 
purposes, and that such a ship ought to be armed with the 
most powerful guns only — should carry no intermediate 
calibres such as the 7-inch and the 8-inch guns. The Brit- 
ish, the French, the Germans, the Japanese and other 
nations have planned ships of 18,000 tons and upward, 
which are not only to carry full batteries of the heaviest 



126 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

guns, but they are to have engines to give them cruiser 
speed, a speed that will enable them to get into battle with 
even the most modest enemy. If we are to defend the Rio 
Grand do Sul and Panama — if in our deahngs with other 
peoples we would ''not be influenced, or even be suspected 
of being influenced, by a consciousness of weakness on the 
sea," we must have a few units of battle not only equal to 
the best but a httle better than any. We already have in 
hand two ships — the South Carolina class — designed to 
carry eight 12-inch guns on a displacement of something 
over 16,000 tons. The guns are so placed that all can be 
fired in either broadside. They are able ships for the size. 
But if either was to meet a 12-inch-gun ship as designed in 
Europe she would rank about as the Essex ranked with the 
Phoebe in the battle of Valparaiso. For they are under in 
size, under in the number of guns and, what is worse, they 
are so slow that they could get into the battle hne only by 
favor of the enemy. Appreciating these facts Congress, in 
the session of 1905-6, provided for one ship that should be 
more powerful than any then designed abroad. And at 
this writing (February, 1907), a bill has just been passed 
providing for one more of the same desirable power. The 
day when we will allow the other nations of the world to 
do the experimenting for us has passed, presumedly, and 
we may therefore hope that the reputation which our 
battleships have had in times past will be maintained. 

In the matter of cruisers our Montana class has a speed 
of twenty-two knots, and each is armed with four 10-inch 
guns and sixteen 6-inch. The corresponding class in the 
British navy carries four 9.2-inch guns and twelve 7.5 inch 
in the broadside, while their speed is at least twenty-three 
knots, and because turbine engines have been adopted, it 
is probable that they mil attain to twenty-five knots. 

Even in the submarines we are behind. Where we have 



OUR NAVY AS IT IS 127 

twelve small ones that are able to make six or eight miles an 
hour under water and eight or nine awash, the British have 
built a number that make ten miles under water and fifteen 
awash, while plans have been drawn for others that are not 
only still more efficient in these respects, but that are to 
carry guns so that they can be used as surface torpedo- 
boats as well as submarines. 

These facts are of particular importance. At the end of 
the Civil War we had a navy that, as compared with other 
navies, was stronger than our present navy, and yet eight 
years of neglect placed it so far behind all other navies that 
the Spanish felt safe in slaughtering American citizens in 
cold blood, and in placing armed soldiers to imprison an 
American consul. If we neglect our navy now it will more 
rapidly fall behind than it did at the end of the Civil War. 
But if we continue to build a few ships, from year to year, 
each to be the most efficient possible in its class, we shall 
maintain the position we have held since the Spanish war 
— we shall be so strong at all times that no people or ruler, 
however ambitious and aggressive, will dare to make war^, 
upon us. 



XIII 

ORGANIZATION OF THE NAVY 

The President of the United States is the commander-in- 
chief of the navy, but for the immediate supervision of the 
naval work there is a Secretary of the Navy, who is a mem- 
ber of the President's Cabinet. The Navy Department 
was estabhshed by the act of Congress dated April 30, 1798. 
Theretofore the naval forces were under the War Depart- 
ment, or the direct control of Congress. 

For the good of the service the work of the Navy De- 
partment is divided among eight bureaus. The Bureau of 
Yards and Docks has charge of all the naval stations, in- 
cluding the shops and machinery and coal storage. 

The Bureau of Equipment provides for the outfit of the 
ships; it supphes the coal which the Bureau of Yards and 
Docks keeps on storage, and all other ship equipment, such 
as anchors, cables, rope, canvas, electrical apparatus, etc. 
The department of astronomical observations is a most 
important branch of its work. 

Under the direct control of the Bureau of Navigation 
are found the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Naval Acad- 
emy, the Naval Home, the Naval War College that gives 
the officers a post-graduate course, the Naval Training 
Stations, and all the ships that are in commission. 

The Bureau of Ordnance provides the guns, torpedoes, 
and ammunition. 

The Bureau of Construction and Repairs has immediate 
charge of the building of the ships, whether in the navy 



ORGANIZATION OF THE NAVY 129 

yards or by contract, and it repairs the ships, for which 
work the Bureau of Yards furnishes the facihties. 

The Bureau of Steam Engineering has charge of all the 
machinery of the navy. 

The Bureau of Supplies and Accounts might be called, 
perhaps, the paymaster's bureau. It outfits the crews as 
the Bureau of Equipment outfits the ships. 

Last of all to be named, but by no means of small im- 
portance, is the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, the name 
of which sufficiently describes its functions. 

Remembering that the quality of the men behind the 
guns is the matter of most importance in time of battle, 
it is apparent that the Bureau of Navigation has the most 
important part of the work of the Navy Department, and 
that the training of the crews is the most important work 
done by this bureau. In the early days of the navy boys 
of from ten to fifteen years of age were placed on the ships 
as midshipmen and learned their duties by practising them. 
Farragut at twelve was for a brief time captain of a whaler 
that the Essex had captured. The chaplain was the school- 
master. The system had some advantages. It worked 
well for the training of captains of frigates, and in excep- 
tional cases, like that of the studious Farragut, most ca- 
pable fleet commanders were developed. In 1813 Congress 
provided for the employment of teachers for the midship- 
men, but all efforts to induce Congress to build a school 
such as the Military Academy was for army officers failed. 
In 1845, however. Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft, 
having observed that he might do it without violating any 
statute, secured from the War Department old Fort Severn, 
at Annapolis, Md., and gathering the midshipmen of the 
navy that were then not actively employed on ships in 
commission, he placed them under Commander Franklin 
Buchanan in the old fort for instruction. The professors 



130 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

previously employed, and who had been scattered about at 
dockyards and on board ships, were concentrated there, 
and on October 10, 1845, the school was formally opened. 
On August 10, 1846, Congress approved the project by 
making an appropriation for " repairs, improvements, and 
instruction." The course of instruction was then five 
years long, but only two were spent at the school. 

At the present time (1907) the Naval Academy still 
occupies the old ground, but every facility is now provided 
for training officers fit for all duties. The rules require that 
candidates should be between sixteen and twenty years 
of age, and perfect specimens of physical manhood. The 
mental examination requires a high-school education in 
candidates. The course of instruction includes everything 
useful, or at any rate necessary, for a naval officer, but he 
is made capable, first of all, to build and handle ships, build 
and handle guns, and build and handle marine steam- 
engines. With these studies, too, must be classed inter- 
national law, for a naval officer must be a diplomat, while 
a study of French and Spanish, the two most important 
maritime languages of the world, is, of course, added. To 
those who are familiar with the books which many naval 
officers have had published it will be unnecessary to say 
that they learn to use the English language in such a way 
that what they write or say is not hkely to be ignored, 
misunderstood, or forgotten. Better yet — indeed, best of 
all — the young men cultivate and are governed by an ideal 
sense of honor. 

At present each Representative and each Senator has a 
right to appoint two midshipmen, while the President ap- 
points two from the District of Columbia and five at large, 
besides one who is appointed from Porto Rico on the 
recommendation of the governor of that island. 

To say more of the officers of our navy as a class seems 



ORGANIZATION OF THE NAVY 131 

superfluous, for their work speaks and has always spoken 
for them. 

In recent years it has been apparent that the people of 
the country have had as much pride in the bluejackets of 
the navy^ as in any other part of the personnel. Time was 
when the old naval sailor was trained only in the work that 
immediately came to his hands : he could make and shorten 
sail, steer the ship, handle the guns, and use the palm needle 
and marhnspike, but he was a drunkard so often that 
'^ Jack" was called a sorry dog at best. But all that has 
been changed by the apprentice system in the American 
navy. When boj^s enter the navy now the training they 
receive starts them in a fair way to become officers and 
gentlemen. The ambitious youth who enters the navy in 
these days is no longer a ''Jack''; he is a bluejacket and 
he has a most honorable career before him. 

By the act of March 2, 1837, Congress provided for an 
apprentice system, but it was based on the theory that a 
bluejacket should be a ''Jackie" and nothing more. Af- 
ter the Civil War the system of enlisting and handling sail- 
ors was so little liked by American young men that more 
than half the crew^s of our ships were foreigners. It was 
then, however, that Rear Admiral S. B. Luce organized 
the system that has developed into that in vogue. The 
young men who enter the navy now must be from seven- 
teen to twenty-five years old, and prime specimens of man- 
hood physically. After signing articles they are sent to 
one of three training stations, Newport, R. L, Norfolk, 
Va., and San Francisco, Cal., where they are kept under 
observation in a detention building for twenty-one days to 
see whether any latent disease will break out. After that 
each receives from three to six months active training. 
During this time he receives pay at the rate of $16 a month 
and is supphed with clothing to the value of $45. Having 



132 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY 

passed this course of training successfully the apprentice 
has opportunity to choose whether he will go into the sea- 
man branch of the service or the engineering. If he will 
try the engine-room he will be rated as a coal passer and 
receive $22 a month until he has mastered the work, when 
he will receive $30 a month. Thereafter he may work his 
way up to chief machinists' mate with pay at from $50 to 
$70 a month, provided he has the ambition to qualify him- 
self. And then he may become a warrant machinist with 
pay from $1,200 to $1,800 per year. 

In the seaman branch of the service the youth may 
readily qualify as a seaman with pay at $24 and rations. 
Then a number of petty officer berths are before him, such 
as seaman gunner (with special training at schools provided 
for the purpose of training), quartermaster, master at arms, 
etc. The pay varies from $30 up to $70 a month, a chief 
petty officer having a permanent appointment receiving 
the latter figure. In all cases the petty officers in both 
branches of the service receive rations and medical attend- 
ance in addition to their pay. Further than that the best 
of the men in the seamen branch have the warrant grades 
of gunner, boatswain, and carpenter before them, wherein 
the pay is from $1,200 to $1,800 a year. 

When one considers the number of men who will pass 
their lives working for from $1.10 to $1.35 a day, passing 
many a day without work, and at all times paying for their 
food, lodging, and medical attendance, out of their scant 
earnings, the wonder is that the naval recruiting stations 
are not overrun with applicants. Rare indeed is the 
skilled mechanic who in civil life makes $840 a year even 
when his daily wage is better than $3. The proportion of 
enlisted men in the navy who receive $600 a year and bet- 
ter is far greater than the proportion of mechanics in civil 
life who do. With an enlisted force of 30,000 men there 



ORGANIZATION OF THE NAVY 133 

are nearly 9,000 petty officers. If in connection with the 
pay we consider other features of Hfe, such as the education, 
and the culture that comes with travel and a knowledge 
of the world, it appears that the career of a man-o '-wars- 
man is one of the most desirable in the world. 

The facilities for enabling all apprentices to advance in 
their work are excellent, among them being certain schools 
to which they may go after a prescribed period of service. 
Particular attention is paid to the instruction in gunnery, 
to the handling of torpedo-boats, and to electricity. The 
apprentice with a taste for the work may become an ex- 
pert electrician, or an expert in any other branch of the 
work of the service. And he may be certain that he will be 
respected in the service, and elsewhere, in proportion to his 
attainments. 

But the whole of the opportunity of the apprentice has 
not yet been told. Under the present laws a certain num- 
ber of warrant officers receive the commission of ensign 
every year, on passing a prescribed examination. This 
prospect is by no means delusive; there are a number of 
lieutenants besides junior lieutenants and ensigns now in 
the navy who have worked their way up from the grade 
of apprentice. There are also paymasters who have risen 
from the ranks through the grade of yeoman. The senior 
lieutenant who was an apprentice will be a lieutenant- 
commander in 1910, in the usual flow of promotion, and 
therefore well on the way to the rank of rear admiral. Let 
the ambitious and energetic young man who has a taste for 
the sea enter the navy. There is no career on shore where 
he can find more chances for advancement. 

And even that is not all that is to be said on this matter; 
for when a man grows old in civil life he loses his position. 
From year to year the chances of an old man getting work 
grow less, no matter how he has lived. But the man-o'- 



134 A SHORT HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN NAVY ^'^ '^ ^ 'J' 

warsman who serves his country faithfully is not thrown 
aside in his old age. On the contrary, he is splendidly 
cared for. For after thirty years of faithful service in the 
navy the bluejacket may retire and receive for the re- 
mainder of his life three-fourths of the pay to which he has 
attained. The chief petty officer with $70 a month, though 
he be but fifty years old, can retire on a pension of over 
$500 a year for the remainder of his life, when he has 
served thirty years. And let it not be forgotten that with 
the growth of the navy the opportunities of the ambitious 
apprentices will be more numerous and success more quickly 
attained. 



THE END. 



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